The Case For Calvinism

THE CASE FOR
CALVINISM
Cornelius Van Til
Presbyterian And Reformed Publishing Co.
Phillipsburg, New Jersey
1979
Copyright 1963
By the Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co.
Philadelphia, Penna.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 63-21698
ISBN: 0-87552476-1
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgements
Publishers Note
Introduction
1. The New Reformation Theology (Hordern)
1. Revitalizing Reformation Thought
2. Brief Description Of Main Tenets
3. History Of The Movement
4. Non-Theological Influences
5. Faith And Reason
6. The Nature Of Revelation
7. How Can We Know That Revelation Is Revelation?
8. The Christian Story, Machen Vs. Hordern
9. Redemption From Sin
10. Horderns Conclusion
11. Our Own First Reaction
2. The Case For Theology In Liberal Perspective (DeWolf)
1. The Difference Between The Two Positions As DeWolf Sees It
A. DeWolf Is Not A Liberal
B. DeWolf Has No Sympathy For Fundamentalism
C. The Religious Revolt Against Reason
2. DeWolf On Methodology
A. Comprehensive Coherence
B. The Reasonable Man
C. A Common Language Of Communication
3. DeWolfs View Of The Christian Story
A. DeWolfs Theism
B. DeWolfs Christ
C. DeWolfs View Of Reconciliation
4. A Comparison Of DeWolf And Hordern
A. A Comparison Of The Method Of DeWolf With That Of Hordern
B. A Comparison Of The Christian Story As Told By DeWolf And The Christian Story As Told
By Hordern
3. The Case For Orthodox Theology (Carnell)
1. Carnells Method
A. General Analysis
B. Evaluation Of Carnells Method
2. Carnells Message
A. Carnells Method Requires The Destruction Of Christianity
4. Calvinism
1. Calvinism And Modern Thought
2. Calvinism And The Freedom-Nature Scheme
A. Kants View Of Man
B. The Biblical View Of Man
C. Kants Kingdom Of Ends
3. Christian Methodology
A. The Self-Authenticating Christ
Preface
The title of this little book was suggested by the appearance of three small volumes:
The Case for a New Reformation Theology by William Hordern; The Case for Theology
in Liberal Perspective by L. Harold DeWolf; and The Case for Orthodox Theology by
Edward John Carnell. These books were published by Westminster Press in 1959.
In the Publishers Note which appears in each of these books, we read, They are
intended to provide for the lay person, student, teacher, and minister a clear statement of
three contemporary theological viewpoints by convinced adherents to these positions.
The present little volume is written with the twofold purpose of showing: (a) that the
first two positions, those of Hordern and DeWolf, really represent the same view, which
we may call the non-biblical view, (b) that the third position, that of Carnell, while
seeking earnestly to present the biblical point of view, does not do it at all adequately.
The result is that the current theological issue is not made clear.
Those, for whom the three above-mentioned volumes were written, may see the issue
in theology more clearly, if it is demonstrated that there are really only two, not three,
points of view between which they must choose. The Big Ditch dividing them is now
seen to be deeper and wider than is suggested by Carnell. Only in a more consistent
biblical presentation than is given by Carnell can they find a methodology sufficient to
answer the basic problems of life.
November 15, 1963
Cornelius Van Til
Acknowledgements
Appreciation is hereby expressed to the Westminster Press for their kindness and
suggestions extended the author. Acknowledgement is made of permission to quote from
their publications: The Case For A New Reformation Theology by William Hordern; The
Case For Theology In Liberal Theology by L. Harold DeWolf; and The Case For
Orthodox Theology by Edward John Carnell. Additional acknowledgements are made in
the footnotes.
The author wishes to express his gratitude to Miss Dorothy Newkirk for the typing of
the manuscript, and to Mr. L. Edward Davis for painstaking help in the technical details
of the manuscript and proofs and making the index.
Publishers Note
Edward John Carnell: He was the Professor of Ethics and Philosophy of Religion at
Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. Reared in a Baptist parsonage, he
attended Wheaton College and then Westminister Theological Seminary. Following this,
the Th.D. was awarded him by Harvard University and soon afterward, a doctorate in
philosophy was granted him by Boston University. Among his literary contributions are
An Introduction to Christian Apologetics, A Philosophy of the Christian Religion,
Christian Commitment, and The Kingdom of Love and the Pride of Life.
L. Harold DeWolf: An ordained Methodist minister, he served pastorates in Nebraska
and Massachusetts for 13 years before appointment to the philosophy department of
Boston University in 1934. Since 1944 Dr. De Wolf has been Professor of Systematic
Theology in the Boston University School of Theology. His literary contributions include
Religious Revolt Against Reason, A Theology of the Living Church, and Trends and
Frontiers of Religious Thought.
Born in Columbus, Nebraska, he received the A.B. from York College, S.T.D. from
Nebraska Wesleyan University, and Ph.D. from Boston University.
William Hordern: A native of Saskatchewan, Canada, he studied at the University of
Saskatchewan, and St. Andrews College, Saskatchewan. The S.T.M. and Th.D. degrees
were granted him by Union Theological Seminary, New York.
At Union, Dr. Hordern served as Class-Assistant to Reinhold Niebuhr and as Tutor-
Assistant to Paul Tillich. He has served pastorates in Marsden, Canada, and Richmond
Hill, New York. For some time Associate Professor of Religion at Swarthmore College,
Pennsylvania, and also Visiting Professor at Crozer Theological Seminary, Dr. Hordern is
presently Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at Garrett Biblical Institute in
Evanston, Illinois.
Besides contributing to many theological journals, he has authored Christ,
Communism and History and A Laymans Guide to Protestant Theology.
Introduction
When in 1923 the late J. Gresham Machen wrote his book on Christianity and
Liberalism he found only two theological positions in the Protestant world. He knew, of
course, the differences between Lutherans and Calvinists. He knew of many other
differences. But there was one difference, as he thought, that cut across all others. On the
one hand there was what he, for want of a better term, called liberalism or modernism.
The movement of liberalism, he said, appeared in many forms but the root of the
movement is one; the many varieties of modern liberal religion are rooted in naturalism
that is, in the denial of any entrance of the creative power of God (as distinguished
from the ordinary course of nature) in connection with the origin of Christianity.1 The
1 New York, 1923, p. 2. (Eerdmaans, Grand Rapids).

liberal preacher was therefore said to be really rejecting the whole basis of
Christianity, which is a religion founded not on aspirations, but on facts.2 The liberal
speaks as though he is merely rejecting antiquated interpretations of Christ and his work.
In reality his attack is against the Bible and against Jesus Himself.3 Therefore the chief
modern rival of Christianity is liberalism. 4 Liberalism rejects the awful
transcendence of God.5 Liberalism has lost all sense of the gulf that separates the
creature from the Creator.6 It has a supreme confidence in human goodness.7 The
liberal doctrine of God and the liberal doctrine of man are both diametrically opposite to
the Christian view.8 The liberal view of God and man depends upon the liberal view of
authority in religion.
What then, asks Machen, is the liberal view as to the seat of authority in religion?9
Does it substitute the authority of Christ for that of the Bible? No, the modern liberal
does not really hold to the authority of Jesus.10 Liberals show contempt not only to the
Spirit of God, but also to Jesus Himself when they regard the teaching of the Holy
Spirit given through the apostles, as at all inferior in authority to the teaching of Jesus.11
Liberalism does not even accept the words of Jesus as they are recorded in the
Gospels.12 The liberal picks and chooses out of these words those that fit with his
preconceived notions of right and wrong. Liberalism does claim that the life-purpose of
Jesus is regulative for the church. But when Jesus says that his life-purpose was to give
his life a ransom for many (Mk 10:45) then this too must be set aside.13 The truth is that
the life-purpose of Jesus discovered by modern liberalism is not the life-purpose of the
real Jesus, but merely represents those elements in the teaching of Jesusisolated and
misinterpretedwhich happen to agree with the modern program.14 Modern liberalism
represents Jesus as a mild-mannered exponent of indiscriminating love. 15
The modern liberal preacher, Machen continues, reverences Jesus; he has the name
of Jesus forever on his lips; he speaks of Jesus as the supreme revelation of God; he
enters, or tries to enter, into the religious life of Jesus. But he does not stand in a religious
relation to Jesus. Jesus for him is an example of faith, not the object of faith. The modern
liberal tries to have faith in God like the faith which he supposes Jesus had in God; but he
2 Ibid., p. 47.
3 Ibid., p. 46.
4 Ibid., p. 53.
5 Ibid., p. 62.
6 Ibid., p. 64.
7 Idem.
8 Ibid., p. 69.
9 Ibid., p. 76.
10 Idem.
11 Ibid., p. 77.
12 Idem.
13 Idem.
14 Ibid., p. 78.
15 Ibid., p. 84.
does not have faith in Jesus.16 For the liberal, Jesus was the first Christian. For
liberalism Jesus was the fairest flower of humanity. 17
However, liberalism does not give us the true picture of Jesus. The New Testament
speaks of one who was both God and man.18 Jesus was God and man in two distinct
natures.19 At the same time the New Testament plainly teaches the unity of the Person
of our Lord.20 This doctrine is, of course, rejected by modern liberals and it is rejected
in a very simple wayby the elimination of the whole higher nature of our Lord.21 Thus
liberalism has succeeded in reconstructing a purely human Jesus. 22
What could such a purely human Jesus do for sinners? The New Testament teaches
that Christ died instead of us to present us faultless before the throne of God.23 But
upon this teaching of the cross of Christ the modern liberals are never weary of pouring
out the vials of their hatred and scorn.24 Against the doctrine of the cross they use every
weapon of caricature and vilification. Thus they pour out their scorn upon a thing so holy
and so precious that in the presence of it the Christian heart melts in gratitude too deep
for words.25 The Christian way of salvation through the Cross of Christ is criticized
because it is dependent upon history. 26
As for himself Machen holds that our religion must be abandoned altogether unless
at a definite point in history Jesus died as a propitiation for the sins of men.27 The
gospel means good news tidings, information about something that has happened.28
Machen knew full well the arguments of the higher critics with respect to the Bible. He
knew full well the argument of the modern philosophy of history, but he did not think that
these arguments had taken away or could take away from Christian believers, the Jesus
who died for the propitiation of their sins at a definite point in history. He knew that a
gospel independent of history is a contradiction in terms.29 We are shut up in this world
as in a beleaguered camp. To maintain our courage, the liberal preacher offers us
exhortation. Make the best of the situation, he says, look on the bright side of life. But,
unfortunately, such exhortation cannot Change the facts. In particular, it cannot change
the dreadful fact of sin. Very different is the message of the Christian evangelist. He
offers not reflection on the old, but tidings of something new, not exhortation but a
gospel.30 The Christ of modern naturalistic reconstruction never could have suffered for
16 Ibid., p. 85.
17 Ibid., p. 96.
18 Ibid., p. 114.
19 Ibid., p. 115.
20 Idem.
21 Idem.
22 Ibid., p. 116.
23 Ibid., p. 119.
24 Idem.
25 Ibid., p. 120.
26 Idem.
27 Ibid., p. 121.
28 Idem.
29 Idem.
30 Idem.
the sins of others; but it is very different in the case of the Lord of Glory.31 The grace of
God is rejected by modern liberalism, and the result is slaverythe slavery of the law,
the wretched bondage by which man undertakes the impossible task of establishing his
own righteousness as a ground of acceptance with God.32 Thus liberalism in reality
spells slavery.
On concluding his analysis of modern liberalism Machen stresses once more the fact
that he is not dealing with delicate personal questions. He is not presuming to say
whether such and such a person is a Christian or not. He is only concerned to point out
that liberalism is not Christianity.33 And he is concerned to make this point clear in the
interest of Christs little ones lest they be deceived. Liberalism, though not Christian, uses
traditional phrases.34 Thus he seeks to make clear the religious issue of the day. He does
not wish to decide issues for men but desires to make the issue clear so that men, in
deciding for themselves, may not be deceived by a form of words, by a gospel that is not
the gospel of the historic Christian faith. He hopes that many liberals themselves may
accept the gospel of salvation through the Christ of the New Testament. It was true love
for his fellow men engendered by the grace of the Christ he worshiped, that made
Machen warn men against the gospel of liberalism, which was a gospel of salvation by
works, by character, or by mystical aspirations toward some unknown and unknowable
god, indeed not a gospel of grace through Christ.
If we are to manifest the love of Christ and our fellow men as Machen did in his day,
it is our solemn responsibility to seek to clarify the religious issue today. The religious
issue of our day is even more complicated than it was in Machens time. This is
particularly the case because of the appearance of the movement of theology connected
with the name of Karl Barth. It may seem well nigh impossible to bring down the issue to
a simple alternative of the sort that Machen presents to us in his book, but we cannot wait
for some great one to simplify things for us. We are bound to undertake the task of
clarification for ourselves in our day and generation. And we may, after all, be
encouraged by the fact that though the issue is, in one sense, more complicated than it
formerly was, it is, in another and more basic sense, as simple as it was in Machens, in
Luthers and in Calvins time, in fact, as simple as it was in Pauls time. Is Christ truly
God as well as truly man, and did he die for sinners on the cross on a definite date in
history to save them from the wrath to come and to present them spotless before the
throne of God at last? And has he told us who he is and what he has done for us sinners in
a way that we can understand? Or are we without God and without Christ in the world?
Must we who are preachers, like tragic poets or like existentialist philosophers, think of
existence as existence unto death and yet draw pictures of some ideal world that does not
exist on land or sea?
In seeking to fulfill our responsibility in this day to some small extent we may
therefore ask whether the gospel proclaimed by the new theology of our day is basically
any more Christian than was the theology of the liberalism of Machens time. We cannot
do this as it deserves to be done merely by dealing with the theology of Hordern and of
DeWolf, who do not pretend to set forth anything like a comprehensive statement of
31 Ibid., p. 128.
32 Ibid., p. 144.
33 Ibid., p. 160.
34 Ibid., p. 18.
Christian truth. They do deal with basic Christian teachings, with Christ, and with the
questions where and how we may know him. We shall therefore confine ourselves to
pointing out that what these men say on these centrally important teachings of
Christianity is not really true to Christianity at all. We shall then point out that, for all his
zeal and intellectual acumen, Carnell does not clarify the religious issue as did Machen.
Moreover, the reason why he did not make the issue clear is his unwillingness to state his
own position of biblical Christianity in terms of the confessions in which this Christianity
has been most clearly and therefore most uncompromisingly set forth. He does, to be
sure, state in his preface that the Reformed Faith, despite its shortcomings, is the most
consistent expression of orthodoxy.35 However his intent to deal with issues that unite,
rather than divide, the church, creates an ambiguity in Carnells approach which we
shall seek to show.36 It might seem that Machen had similar intent, for those who knew
him well in his day knew that he loved his brethren in Christ, whether they professed his
own conviction with respect to the Reformed Faith or not. However, an important
difference does exist between the method of Machen and that of Carnell. Carnells
seeking for that which unites him with all orthodox believers causes him to blur the
issues, and results in a blurring of the issues between a theology based on naturalistic
reconstruction and the historic Christian faith. In contrast with this procedure Machen
never obscured the issues existing between himself and his fellow believers nor between
himself and the modernists of his day.
Our first task will be to establish that the position of Hordern is not radically different
from that of DeWolf. And in order to do this it will be our aim to show that neither of
these men has a gospel to offer that is essentially different from the gospel of the liberals
of Machens time. The positions of both of these men may well be in a qualified sense, an
improvement upon the theology that was held by the older liberals. But neither of these
men presents the gospel of salvation through an event in history, namely, the transition
from wrath to grace by the atoning death and resurrection of Jesus Christ who is true God
and true man in one person forever.
It is Horderns position that must engage us first. He represents what he calls a New
Reformation theology, that is, a theology that has been largely informed by the reaction
against older modernism by such men as Karl Barth and others. This new theology has
often been called dialectical theology. More recently its spokesmen speak of this theology
as a theology of the Word. This indicates that, following the Reformers, they mean to
make scriptural authority basic in their thought. In doing so they feel nonetheless bound
to reject the traditional view of Scripture which, they say, would keep them from being
confronted by the Christ, and it is confrontation with Christ that concerns them most. It is
his high and absolute authority before which they would bow. Thus their position, notably
that of Barth, as set forth in his great work on Church Dogmatics, seeks to be truly
Christological. It will therefore be our central aim to show that the Christ of this new
Christology is not really different from the Christ of the older liberals. We shall show that
the New Reformation theology is not a Reformation theology at all.
Thereafter we may turn to DeWolf. His Theology in Liberal Perspective is not to be
identified with the older liberalism. His is a reconstructed liberalisma reconstruction
35 Carnell, The Case for Orthodox Theology (Philadelphia. Westminster Press, 1959), p.
13.
36 Idem.
basically similar to that of Hordern. DeWolf, as well as Hordern, seeks earnestly for a
Christ who speaks from above, a Christ who speaks with authority, a Christ that really
saves men from their sin. He seeks as earnestly for such a Christ as does Hordern.
However, we believe that the Christ each seeks, is nothing more than the projected Christ
of the older liberals. The reason being that the Christ of the New Reformation Theology,
the Christ of Theology in Liberal Perspective, and the Christ of the older liberalism is
solely a Christ created by the ideas of modern philosophy and science, back of which is
the operation of the would-be autonomous man. To fully establish this contention would
be a large task. No pretense is made that so large a program can be adequately dealt with
in so slender a publication as the present one. Reference will therefore be made from time
to time to other publications by this author and others in which this basic claim is more
fully established. All that the present little work seeks to do is to put the religious issue
clearly before the layman so that he may see where his responsibility lies and so that he
may really meet the Christ of the Scripture in the fulness of his majestic claim.
How shall a theology such as is presented by Hordern and DeWolf be challenged? It
cannot be done by a presentation of an orthodoxy that is itself permeated with the
principles on which the position of Hordern and DeWolf is based. It can and must be
done, however, by setting the truly Christ-centered position of the historic Protestant
faith, especially the historic Reformed Faith as found in Calvin and his followers, over
against the man-centered position of Hordern and DeWolf. Carnell, it appears, is
unwilling to do this.
In the first chapter we shall, therefore, give a primarily descriptive and only partially
critical analysis of Horderns views. In the second chapter we shall set forth DeWolfs
views and compare them at once with those of Hordern. In the third chapter we shall deal
with Carnell and show that he has committed himself to a methodology that keeps him
from discerning and adequately challenging the types of theology that are represented by
Hordern and DeWolf. Thereafter, as conclusion we shall seek to show that solely in the
historic Christian faith as expressed by Calvin and his followers do we have a theology
truly Christological and biblical and therefore the only adequate weapon we have to
challenge the wisdom of the world that has found expression in the views represented by
Hordern and DeWolf.
1
Chapter 1:
The New Reformation Theology
(Hordern)
The movement for which Hordern speaks is, he says, characterized primarily by a
restored interest in the orthodox, or traditional, faith of the church, but it has been
orthodoxy thought and reinterpreted for our times.1 Seeking to avoid party labels,
1Van Til, C. (1964). The case for Calvinism. The Prebyterian and Reformed Publishing
Company: Philadelphia.
1 Hordern, The Case for a New Reformation Theology (Philadelphia: Westminster Press,
1959), p. 17.
Hordern speaks of this movement as a New Reformation theology. He says that in the
nature of the case he is defending only the broad outlines and tendencies of this
movement.
Hordern at once relates his New Reformation theology to fundamentalism and
liberalism. At the beginning of the century fundamentalism was he says prepared to defy
modernity and let the chips fall where they might.2 On the other hand liberalism was
casting its lot with the modern world, dedicated to the principle that Gods truth and
scientific truth could not really be in contradiction.3 Rejecting the alternative between
fundamentalism and liberalism, New Reformation theology tried to express the
Reformations insights for the twentieth century.4 Those who hold the new reformation
theology feel that fundamentalism has rigidified Christian thinking to the point where it
has lost contact with both the modern world and the dynamic riches of traditional thought
while liberalism had lost its mooring in traditional Christianity. 5
1. Revitalizing Reformation Thought
In the New Reformation theology we have then an attempt to revitalize Reformation
thought.6 To revitalize the theology of the Reformation requires first that we go back of
the Reformation and preserve the insights of pre-Reformation theology.7 It requires
second that we must include the insights from all wings of the Reformation.8 Doing
this, argues Hordern, will at once enable us to distinguish true Reformation theology from
Protestant Scholasticism or Protestant Orthodoxy. Doing this we shall be saved from
identifying Protestantism with the idea that faith means salvation through correct
belief9 and Protestant Scholasticism held such a view. Fundamentalism is a direct
inheritor of this scholasticism.10 The new movement in theology does not, therefore
lead back to fundamentalism.11 The New Reformation theology thinks of
fundamentalism as a Protestant heresy12 rather than as the true defender of the faith
which it has claimed to be.13 Fundamentalism is actually a distortion of the Biblical
faith.14 Liberalism used reason and experience to refute the fundamentalist, but the
New Reformation thinker has used, ironically, the Bible itself to refute the
fundamentalist. 15
One point must be added to this picture of the background of the New Reformation
theology as drawn by Hordern. The study of the Reformation has not only compelled the
New Reformation theologians to repudiate fundamentalism but also its newer form of
2 Ibid., p. 14.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid., p. 16.
6 Ibid., p. 17.
7 Ibid., p. 18.
8 Idem.
9 Idem.
10 Idem.
11 Idem.
12 Idem.
13 Idem.
14 Idem.
15 Ibid., p. 15.
conservatism.16 The allusion seems to be to the movement often called New
Evangelicalism, represented by such men as Carnell, Carl Henry and others. Hordern
thinks that the rebirth of conservatism will help to clarify the New Reformation position
as the mediating position, which it always has been. 17
2. Brief Description of Main Tenets
Hordern now proceeds to give a brief descriptive definition of the New
Reformation theology. He does so by indicating some of the themes with which the
movement is concerned.18 There is an emphasis upon the fact that we are dependent
upon God alone for salvation.19 The movement has taken on with new seriousness the
traditional Christian doctrine of sin. In the light of this it has affirmed the otherness, of
transcendence, of God. God is not to be equated in any way with man at his best.20 There
is no road that leads from man to God. God in his freedom chooses when and where he
will be made known; God always has the initiative in making himself available to man.
This is what it means to take seriously the Reformation doctrine of salvation by grace.21
Immediately connected with this central Protestant doctrine of salvation by grace goes
that of the doctrine of Scripture alone (sola scriptura).22 In Scripture God himself tells us
what he has done for the sinner. With God thus taking the initiative in the salvation of
man the latter finds that his reason which could not take man to God is now liberated in
the service of God.23 And service to God means freedom from the service of man. No
limit can be put upon his freedom of thought and action except the infinite limit of God
himself. This is what it means to take seriously the doctrine of the priesthood of
believers. 24
Here we already have the heart of the whole matter. Everything else that is mentioned
is subsidiary to this. Here is the Reformation doctrine of salvation by grace, the
Reformation doctrine of Scripture, and the Reformation doctrine of the universal
priesthood of believers. In the nature of the case Roman Catholicism is excluded in this
statement. And then the Reformation principle is protected from the distortion of it by
the fundamentalist and the conservative. Moreover the Reformation principle is
developed as over against the immanentism of the liberal theologian.
3. History of the Movement
Hordern assists us in getting our bearings further by conjoining to this statement of
principles a brief survey of the history of the movement.
The movement really began, he says, in the nineteenth century in that strange
Danish thinker, Sren Kierkegaard.25 Kierkegaard argued that life cannot be formed
16 Idem.
17 Idem.
18 Idem.
19 Idem.
20 Idem.
21 Idem.
22 Ibid., p. 20.
23 Idem.
24 Idem.
25 Idem.
into a system of rational thought.26 Life is not neatly rational, it is paradoxical, and
the Christian faith presents us with paradox at its very centertime and eternity united in
the God-man. Consequently, faith, or commitment, becomes an important element of
philosophy; it is not our task to find the truth but to live it. We should not worry about
what is Christianity but about how do I become a Christian? 27
It is well known, says Hordern, that when Karl Barth published Romans he followed
Kierkegaard closely. So the twentieth century beginning of the movement of New
Reformation theology is usually said to take its beginning from him. But in Britain such
men as P. T. Forsyth, John Oman and William Temple were sketching out directions of
thought that are certainly in the mainstream of the movement.28 And in America the
movement goes back as far as Walter Rauschenbusch for in him we find the beginning
of trends that were to flower a few years later in the thought of Reinhold Niebuhr. 29
It remains true, however, that it was Karl Barth who made the new theology an
official competitor for the Christian mind.30 no Barth began his career as an optimistic
liberal, but he gave up the faith of the liberal. In his Romans The Word of God took the
central place. God is known only where he speaks and Gods Word is spoken in Christ.
31
Barths disciples no longer appealed to mans strength. They preached mans

weakness. They placed men face to face with their creatureliness and sin and pointed
them to their only hope, the work of God in Christ. 32
Soon, however, the movement of New Reformation theology experienced growing
pains. Emil Brunner thought that Barth went too far in that he left no point of contact for
the gospel of grace in the natural man at all. But Barth answered by saying that Brunner
had lost the doctrine of the Holy Spirit which tells us that God himself creates his point of
contact with man when God desires to speak to him. 33
Even so this did not mean that Brunner was read out of the movement. In fact, in
America he became its most popular European spokesman.34 The limited room that he
gives to natural theology has made him congenial to Americans who were born and raised
in liberalism.35 And Brunner has made particular use of Martin Bubers concept of I
and Thou and has shown how this brings the Biblical revelation alive. In revelation we
do not receive supernatural information but we are called to a personal encounter with
God. 36
Other men to be mentioned are Anders Nygren and Gustaf Aulen of the Scandinavian
countries, John and Donald Ballie who followed Forsyth, Oman and Temple in Britain.
Still further there are J. S. Whale and D. R. Davies. For America, Reinhold and H.
26 Idem.
27 Ibid., p. 21.
28 Idem.
29 Idem.
30 Idem.
31 Idem.
32 Ibid., p. 22.
33 Idem.
34 Idem.
35 Idem.
36 Idem.
Richard Niebuhr, John Mackay, Edwin Lewis, and Wilhelm Pauck must be mentioned.
Then too such men as John C. Bennett, Walter Horton and Nels Ferr, though not directly
a part of the movement, have made important contributions to a reawakening
appreciation of the Reformation. 37
And what shall we say about Rudolph Bultmann and Paul Tillich in this connection?
We may say that the New Reformation theology has learned much from them but that it
cannot directly claim them as part of the movement.38 Today Barth thinks of Bultmann
as originating a new liberalism.39 And Paul Tillich himself has argued that he stands
on the borderline between liberalism and neo-orthodoxy.40 Tillich has, nonetheless,
clarified the Protestant principle. The conclusion of the matter is that liberalism and
conservatism are the chief competitors to the New Reformation position considered in
this series. 41
Bultmann and Tillich quite possibly will be the most formidable competitors to the
position in the years to come. 42
4. Non-Theological Influences
It will be impossible to understand the significance of the new movement in theology,
says Hordern, without referring at least briefly to the revolution that has occurred in
philosophy.43 Liberal theology allied itself with idealism.44 The idealist was a
colleague in the battle against materialism and naturalism.45 Of course the liberals were
aware that there was a tension between their Biblical faith and the God they could
produce from out of their philosophy.46 The advantage was that they could speak to the
modern age; they were showing the intellectual respectability of Christianity.47 They
did not ask modern man, with his suspicion of faith to start with faith; they were prepared
to reason with him and to take him, by reason, to the point where faith would be a
reasonable next step. 48
Karl Barth criticized this alliance of theology and philosophy.49 As a consequence
there rages the debate between so-called philosophical theologians who would combine
theology and philosophy, and kerygmatic, or Biblical, theologians, who would preach
the Christian gospel without aid from philosophy. 50
37 Ibid., p. 24.
38 Idem.
39 Idem.
40 Ibid., p. 25.
41 Idem.
42 Idem.
43 Idem.
44 Idem.
45 Idem.
46 Ibid., p. 26.
47 Idem.
48 Idem.
49 Idem.
50 Idem.
As for Hordern himself he agrees with the analytical philosophers.51 We live in the
Age of Analysis.52 Analytical philosophical philosophy is antimetaphysical.53 There is
no reason why the new theology should not make friends with the new philosophy.54 And
as the new philosophy had an interesting forerunner in William of Occam so theologians
who wish to return to the Reformation should remember that Luther proclaimed himself
an Occamite.55 If Luther could work with Occams philosophy, the New Reformation
theologians should find themselves at home with the analytic philosopher.56 A theology
like that of Karl Barth can live with analytic philosophy.57 Barth has been seeking to
verify the Christian faith along the precise lines that the analytic philosopher admits to be
possible, at least in theory. Barth is in further conformity with the analytic philosophy in
that where the philosopher sees his task as that of analyzing language in general, Barth
sees his task as theologian to be that of analyzing the language of the church. 58
Not all the New Reformation theologians have made full use of analytic philosophy;
some have been preoccupied with existentialist philosophy.59 And from the
existentialists the movement has reaped many benefits. The existentialist analysis of
modern mans anxiety, estrangement, and desperate longing for meaning to life makes an
interesting background for the Christian gospel. But I agree with Barth that existentialism
can be as dangerous to a New Reformation faith as was idealism.60 But though this be
true, Hordern tells us that he has turned with relief from the turgid attempts of
existentialists to dig up their souls by the roots to see if they are growing to the brittle
clarity of the analytic tradition.61 Of course, he says, theology must not be tied to any
philosophy but today the theological right may be illuminated by the philosophical
left.62 Analytic philosophy does not stand on a metaphysical basis; it does not offer a
rival interpretation of life.63 And since this is the case the theologian may receive help
from the analysis of language made by the analytical philosopher. As Professor W. F.
Zuurdeeg suggests, analytical philosophy and New Reformation theology can have a
mutually stimulating co-existence. 64
5. Faith and Reason
Analytic philosophy has shown that the so-called rational theologian is operating on
the basis of faith as much as is the kerygmatic, or Biblical, theologian. 65
51 Ibid., p. 27.
52 Idem.
53 Idem.
54 Ibid., p. 28.
55 Idem.
56 Idem.
57 Ibid., p. 29.
58 Idem.
59 Idem.
60 Idem.
61 Idem.
62 Idem.
63 Ibid., p. 30.
64 Idem.
65 Idem.
With this we come more directly into the field of controversy. For we are now driven
into the whole question of methodology. Hordern is concerned to prove that as the
rational theologians are compelled to use faith as well as reason, so the kerygmatic
theologians use reason as well as faith. Not for a moment would the kerygmatic
theologian accept any statement because the Bible says so. The New Reformation
theology is not fideism; it does not operate on credentia. It is rather the primacy of faith
that we must have.66 But when New Reformation theologians speak of this primacy of
faith they do not mean the primacy of uncertain beliefs; they mean the primacy of a
particular cognitive claim. Faith is a way of knowing.67 Barth tells us that knowledge
which comes through faith must immediately be examined by reason.68 In short, Barth
does not call us to swallow some set of doctrines or conclusions. He witnesses to the fact
that God is made known to man through faith. And this faith immediately moves man to
seek understanding. Reason does not produce the faith, but reason is necessary to
comprehend what is disclosed. 69
The fundamentalist then is quite wrong. He believes certain doctrines because the
Bible says so. What of the philosophical theologians? They do not like the idea of the
primacy of faith. But today the philosophical theologian faces the analytic philosopher.
And the analytic philosopher has shown that any rational argument used to establish the
existence of God is not only illogical but nonsensical.70 Thus the philosophical
theologians arguments are declared unphilosophical by capable philosophers.71 Logic
tells us that we can prove nothing by analogy.72 And in any case the natural theologian,
no less than Barth and the analytic philosopher, begins with faith.73 Faith is a
prerational framework within which reason works. It is not a conclusion lacking
verification; it is the frame of reference which decides what the criteria are that will
verify. It is the presupposition of all verification. 74
Moreover, even the most rigorously rational enterprisesmathematics, science, and
philosophy, begin their reasoning in the light of a faith. All their proofs rest finally in a
frame of reference that cannot be proved. 75
Here then is the issue. The New Reformation theology is not to be branded as
irrationalism. On the contrary this theology is in the best of philosophical company,
namely, that of analytical philosophy. Both hold that the finite world can give no clue to
God. And this leads them, so Hordern says, to hold to what has really always been held
to by the best of theologians, like Augustine, and the greatest of philosophers, namely, to
the primacy of faith in relation to reason. The rational theologians may not see it for the
moment, but in fact they are on the same side as are the Reformation theologians.
66 Ibid., p. 35.
67 Idem.
68 Idem.
69 Ibid., p. 36.
70 Ibid., p. 37.
71 Ibid., pp. 37, 38.
72 Ibid., p. 37.
73 Ibid., p. 38.
74 Ibid., p. 39.
75 Ibid., p. 40.
Together they hold to their position with all the best of philosophy and theology against
those who believe blindly on the mere say-so of a book.
6. The Nature of Revelation
What has just been said must be remembered when Hordern speaks of revelation. He
wants to preserve the Reformations faith in the objectivity of revelation given through
the Scriptures.76 But this Reformation faith must be expressed in the light of the new
situation that we face because of the development of historical criticism and modern
thought in general. 77
When, therefore, we say that God reveals himself we must not think that he gives us
information that can be put into rational propositions.78 If God reveals information, we
almost have to accept the view that the revelation is infallible. As the fundamentalist says,
if you deny any statements in the Bible, you are calling God a liar.79 But how fantastic
such a position is. For even if we said that the Bible was inerrant how about those who
read the Bible? Does each reader of the Bible become a pope who can interpret
infallibly?80 How then do we escape falling into the Roman Catholic notion of
continuing infallibility? To hold to true objectivity of the Reformation theology we
must, therefore, reject the basic error of the fundamentalist, namely that what God
reveals is information.81 Kierkegaard has helped us to get rid of this false notion of
objectivity. He has shown that the subjective receiver of revelation is an indispensable
link in the chain of communication between God and man.82 And did not the Reformers
emphasize the fact that the Holy Spirit must illumine the hearts of believers if they are to
receive Gods revelation aright? 83
The New Reformation theology, therefore, holds that what God reveals is not
propositions or informationwhat God reveals is God.84 In revelation we speak of a
person-to-person relation. We do not think of the I-it dimension of science. Such men as
Martin Buber and others have taught us to understand the meaning of this fact.85 And
even when we speak of our relation of person-to-person we find that propositions are
grossly inadequate to express the reality that we know. This is why we turn to poetry, to
symbolic actions, and to anecdotes to express what we know about the uniqueness of the
other person.86 We may say that God is love. But we cannot consider this infallible. To
know what Gods love means we have to point to the acts of God in revelationto his
choosing of the Jews, to Jesus relationship with little children, to the woman taken in
adultery, and to the Pharisees. Finally, and above all, we must see its meaning in Jesus
death and in the Bibles interpretation of the meaning of that death. 87
76 Ibid., p. 54.
77 Idem.
78 Ibid., p. 55.
79 Ibid., p. 56.
80 Ibid., p. 57.
81 Idem.
82 Ibid., p. 59.
83 Ibid., p. 60.
84 Ibid., p. 62.
85 Ibid., pp. 62, 63.
86 Ibid., p. 63.
87 Ibid., p. 64.
And even here we must beware of the fundamentalist error. We must not seek for the
meaning of the flesh and blood of Jesus in the words of Scripture as such. For
revelation is given only through the Holy Spirit. Like Peter, we must first see the man
Jesus. Here is the objective side of revelation; this is the givenness of Gods action.88 But
still further we must go. For God is hidden as well as revealed in Jesus; many had seen
Jesus without hearing the Word of God.89 If, therefore, we are to see the man Jesus the
Bible is indispensable, for it alone records the events through which God was revealed.
In the Bible we read the witness of the Biblical writers that through this Jesus of Nazareth
Gods revelation came to them. 90
That this view of revelation is more true to the Bible than the position of the
fundamentalist, says Hordern, is shown by a number of leading theologians.91 How could
it be otherwise, since the Bible is primarily a book of history.92 How could we have in
history any revelation other than that of person-to-person confrontation? Brunner has
made this abundantly clear to us.93 Brunner, building on Kierkegaard, has pointed out
that Jesus fails to fulfill the essential function of a teacher. The true teacher does not point
to himself; he points to the truth.94 The teacher tries to make himself unnecessary. But
Jesus constantly pointed to himself. He said he was the way, the truth, and the life. A
mans very status before God will depend upon his relationship to Christ.95 Thus the
person-to-person confrontation of men with Jesus, which is the heart of the gospel,
requires the rejection of the idea that revelation is information.96 Paul makes abundantly
clear that man is not saved by submitting his reason to divinely revealed propositions; he
is saved by a faith-relationship with Christ. 97
7. How Can We Know that Revelation is
Revelation?
Hordern concludes his discussion of methodology with the question of the criterion of
revelation. Up to this point he has shown, he thinks, that we are to believe in the primacy
of faith, but that we are not to be fideists. We are to believe that God reveals God but we
are not to be irrationalists. He goes on now to show that revelation is its own criterion.98
The sola scriptura principle means that wherever there is a claim to revelation, the
Christian must judge it by the criteria of revelation presented in Scripture itself. Man, we
believe, apart from the Scriptural revelation, does not have a criteria to judge
revelation.99 But this does not imply the rejection of biblical criticism. A new
Reformation theology has more concern with Biblical criticism than did even liberalism.
88 Ibid., p. 65.
89 Idem.
90 Idem.
91 Ibid., p. 68.
92 Idem.
93 Idem.
94 Ibid., p. 70.
95 Idem.
96 Ibid., p. 71.
97 Ibid., p. 72.
98 Ibid., p. 82.
99 Idem.
Just because we believe that God is revealed through the Bible, it becomes more
necessary to be critical of the Bible.100 We must not be the victims of the first fanatic that
comes along. We have every right to test, by reason, any claim to revelation in terms of
its correlation with its own claim.101 What the New Reformation theology opposes is a
priori thinking about God.102 A priori thinking about God is based upon and leads to
idolatry. But to oppose a priori thinking about God is not to say that faith destroys
critical thinking.103 Analytical philosophers and even the logical positivists have
stripped our idols from us.104 They bring out the nonsense of the gods that religion and
metaphysics continually create.105 We must, therefore, argues Hordern, return to the
Reformation idea of the self-authenticating character of revelation. We do so centrally
when we combine the idea of objectivity of revelation in the Bible with the gift of the
Holy Spirit given to believers. There is nothing irrational about this. With the coming
of faith reasoning begins.106 If we believed that revelation consisted of certain
informational propositions, and if we claimed that there could be no test for them apart
from revelation, it would be irrational. The mind would have to swallow the propositions
and refuse to question further. We would be in the position of Alices Queen, who could
sometimes believe six impossible things before breakfast.107 But since we believe that
what is revealed is God himself there is given us an ultimate perspective. This ultimate
perspective illuminates the whole of life.
Thus the upshot of our whole discussion of methodology is that God is known by the
faith-reason act in the light of Gods revelation of himself. God does not reveal
propositions about himself, but he reveals himself to man through history.108 And this
interpretation of faith and reason, which has been slowly emerging in recent thought, both
philosophical and theological, has many important implications. For one thing it means a
complete reversal of traditional apologetics.109 Traditionally, apologetics always
implied that the question, Is there a God? was analogous to the question, Are there
cookies in the jar in the cupboard?110 We now know that there is a difference between
the I-it dimension of science and the I-thou dimension of our relation to God.111 It is our
business as Christians to confront the unbeliever with the claims of God in Christ. We
cannot do this if we seek God as we seek things or objects in this world. We must tell
the Christian storythe historical events on which the faith is built. 112
8. The Christian Story, Machen Vs. Hordern
100 Ibid., p. 86.
101 Ibid., p. 87.
102 Ibid., p. 88.
103 Ibid., p. 89.
104 Idem.
105 Idem.
106 Ibid., p. 93.
107 Idem.
108 Ibid., p. 94.
109 Ibid., p. 97.
110 Ibid., p. 98.
111 Ibid., p. 99.
112 Ibid., p. 100.
From what has just been said it might appear as though Horderns view resembles that
of Machen. Machen complained that liberalism had taken away the Jesus who died for
our sins at a definite point in history. The gospel, he said, is good news about
something that happened. And now Hordern seems to say the same thing. He says that
we must tell men of the historical events on which the faith is built. But it is perfectly
plain that Hordern regards Machens view as a reduction of the gospel from the
dimension of the personal to the dimension of things. Machens views of miracle, he
argues, is that of the fundamentalist. Machen holds that God and the world are essentially
separated, that is, he holds to a dualistic view of the relation of God to the world and that,
therefore, Gods immediate activity in the world must take the form of miracle. Only if
there is a miracle, can we know that God is at work.113 Machen has no eye for the true
idea of the immanence of God. And only if we have a true view of the immanence of God
can we see that a naturalistic and a theological explanation of the same event are quite
possible.114 Of course, says Hordern, this view of immanence could be taken to an
extreme. Then we would have pantheism.115 But the New Reformation theology, while
not denying the true view of immanence and, therefore, able to allow for naturalistic
explanations of events, none the less is concerned that God is not of the world, nor the
best in man.116 God is always and everywhere the hidden God; he transcends all that we
know about him. Our knowledge of God must always confess humbly that it fades away
into mystery before the Sovereign Lord of all.117 While then miracle is a fundamental
and indispensable part of our faith we should realize that until we have a complete
knowledge of nature, we cannot know what is miraculous.118 Miracles give not a natural
but a theological interpretation of events.119 On this point liberalism is more orthodox
than conservatism.
9. Redemption from Sin
The Christian story then tells of redemption from sin. The biblical God takes time
seriously. Redemption is not a timeless process. As sinners we depend on the free
decisions made by God and upon his acts of redemption which are immanent within
historical time.120 There is one door that opens into the holy of holies. The true path is
through personality. 121
This should not be taken to mean that sin has come into the world through Adam as
an historical individual. The Christian affirms the truth in the Adam and Eve story,
regardless of its historicity, because it is in complete correlation with the redemption the
Christian has found in Christ.122 Each man commits original sin when he centers his
life upon himself.123 We must, therefore, begin all our thinking from the fact of
113 Ibid., p. 107.
114 Ibid., p. 109.
115 Idem.
116 Ibid., p. 111.
117 Idem.
118 Ibid., p. 114.
119 Idem.
120 Ibid., p. 119.
121 Ibid., p. 120.
122 Ibid., p. 130.
123 Ibid., p. 137.
atonement in Christ.124 When we do this, then we can combine the good in the various
theories of atonement that have arisen in the history of the church.125 There is first the
ransom theory. Better than any other doctrine it combines the incarnation, the cross, and
the resurrection. It explains why Paul says that if Christ be not raised from the dead, we
are still in our sins (1 Cor 15:17).126 Then there is the theory of vicarious atonement.
This doctrine has many objectionable features. It drops the New Testament picture of the
family relationship between God the Father and man the son, and puts into its place the
picture of a law court.127 But this doctrine also has its deep truth.128 It takes seriously
the problem of guilt. And today the physician and the psychiatrist know that guilt can
actually make us ill.129 Finally there is the moral influence theory. It is weakest in that it
attributes too much power to man. But it is strong in the fact that on its view man is not a
spectator. On its view man is involved. The moral influence theory expresses the truth
that atonement works a real change in man. 130
Thus by realizing the basic fact that mans relation to God is personal, not
mechanical, and by gathering together the truly personalist elements in the various
theories of atonement we are back to the Reformation doctrine of salvation by grace
through faith. 131
10. Horderns Conclusion
Horderns conclusion of the whole matter, as was his beginning, is stated in relation
to both fundamentalism and liberalism. The peculiar danger of fundamentalism and
conservatism is that, in their concern to keep the purity of the faith, they lose contact with
the world.132 The liberal is so concerned to speak to his age that he comes to the point
where he has nothing to say to the world that the world is not already saying to itself and
probably saying better.133 True, The best representative of both schools have evaded
both errors. And ironically, the conservative often commits the error of modernism and
the liberal the error of conservatism.134 In particular the new conservative theology of
today, in its desire to be up-to-date, intellectual, and relevant, is in grave danger of
conforming too closely to the modern age to be able to bring a word to that age.135 The
New Reformation theology has the advantage of being warned by both dangers in our
age. We have seen Christianity made into both an archaic world view and an emotional
tinge to modernity. It is the hope and prayer of the new reformation theology that it may
sail between the Scylla and the Charybdis of these twin dangers.136 Of course, this new
theology may again forget that man never possesses God, in his church, his creed, or his
124 Ibid., p. 142.
125 Ibid., p. 143.
126 Idem.
127 Ibid., p. 146.
128 Idem.
129 Idem.
130 Ibid., p. 151.
131 Idem.
132 Ibid., p. 161.
133 Idem.
134 Idem.
135 Idem.
136 Ibid., p. 162.
theology.137 If only the believer looks to what God has done for him,138 as then he will
realize that as a child is born into a family and is loved irrespective of his deserts and
attainments, so man is loved by God irrespective of his value for God.139 The Christian
doctrine of salvationis from beginning to end the gospel of what God has done for
man.140 Christianity is built on the fact of atonement.141 In saying this we point out that
we have recovered the realism of orthodox Christianity. 142
11. Our Own First Reaction
Our own final conclusion cannot be given till after our descriptive analysis of the
three books under discussion is completed. Not until then will it be possible to evaluate
Horderns basic claim. This claim is to the effect that the New Reformation theology has
preserved Reformation thought and has made it speak to our time. Reformation theology,
Hordern thinks, really tells the Christian story in terms of its own criteria and is,
therefore, of genuine help to men in their search for life and light. We do not think this
claim has been substantiated, nor do we think that Horderns God really reveals God.
Neither do we believe that his Christ can anywhere be found. We do not, in short, believe
that he has shown us, even with the help of the great theologians and philosophers to
whom he appeals, how we can stand in a personal relation to God and Christ. Our reasons
for this negative conclusion cannot here be stated. Nevertheless it will help if we refer to
them briefly at this juncture. To do so, will clarify the issue to some extent.
Hordern argues that the liberal comes to the point where, in his anxiety to speak to the
world he has nothing to say to the world that the world is not already saying to itself.
This criticism is, we believe to the point. But Hordern himself has not shown that the
New Reformation theology has anything essentially different to say to the world than
liberalism has already been saying. If Horderns God is more transcendent than is the
God of liberalism, then he is, to that extent, more clearly unknown and unknowable. If
his Christ is more unique than the Christ of liberalism, he is to that extent more wholly
hidden. And when the God and the Christ of Hordern are revealed to man then they are as
completely lost in the universalism of the I-it dimension as are the God and the Christ of
liberalism.
Of course, this final criticism is made from a certain standpoint or perspective,
namely, from the point of view represented by the historic Creeds of the Reformed
churches. It will be made in terms of the framework set forth in the tradition of recent
Reformed theologians and philosophers, as these go back to the Reformers and especially
Calvin.
Unfortunately these creeds and these modern Reformed thinkers have virtually been
left out of consideration by Hordern. He apparently assumes that the orthodox position is
adequately represented by what he calls fundamentalism and New Evangelicalism, in
particular by Carnell. He does indeed refer to J. Gresham Machen; however, but what is
said with respect to Machen is not placed in the proper context, in terms of which it alone
is intelligible.
137 Ibid., p. 165.
138 Ibid., p. 156.
139 Ibid., p. 152.
140 Ibid., p. 142.
141 Idem.
142 Ibid., p. 141.
Machen was a Reformed theologian. He, therefore, had no such dualistic view of the
relation of God to the world as Hordern ascribes to him. Machen finds the need for the
miracle of Christianity not, as Hordern erroneously asserts, in a dualistic view of the
original relation of God to the world. Machen believed with Calvin in the original
immanence of God in the created world. Machen presupposes this immanence for the
possibility and actuality of miracle. The need for miracle was for him the need for
redemption from sin.143 For man had sinned in a world in which he was confronted with
God even in the facts of creation. If Hordern had given any consideration to the main
argument of the book of Machen from which he quotes he could never have said of his
view: The logic is clear. Since God and the world are essentially separated, Gods
immediate activity in the world must take the form of miracle. Only if there is miracle
can we know that God is at work. 144
Strange as it seems, however, that Hordern should charge Machen with dualism, yet
from another point of view it is not strange at all. Machen obviously believed in the
immanence of God in the world by virtue of the biblical ideas of creation and providence.
Hordern might have looked into The Fundamentals for Today and he would have found
insistence on this same immanence of God in the world. The world is Gods world,
says James Orr, for it is established by his decree; he has given to every creature its
nature, its bounds, its limits; all things continue according to his ordinances (Ps 119:91).
However, Orr adds that law in the Bible is never viewed as having independent existence.
It is always regarded as an expression of the power and wisdom of God.145 Here is the
difficulty. For Hordern natural law is something that is independent of God. Horderns
conception of natural law is that of modern post-Kantian thought. He assumes that if as
Christians we are to speak to modern man we must agree with him on his concept of
nature. Hordern agrees essentially with Kants freedom-nature scheme to the effect that
the order of nature is due originally to the formalizing activity of the intellect of man
upon the raw stuff of his experience. With this essentially Kantian view of nature goes the
accompanying Kantian view of the supernatural. In short, though Hordern does not
expressly mention the Kantian distinction between phenomena and noumena, his thought
is not significantly different from that of Kant. With Kant he holds that nature (Kants) is
the realm where intellectual conception or reason rules. And with Kant, Hordern holds
that beyond nature there is a realm of which man can have no knowledge. Therefore, he
thinks, we dare not hold to a view of immanence and of revelation or miracle such as
Machen holds.
The important thing to note here is that underneath this entire construction lies the
presupposition that the mind of God and the mind of man are united with one another
even as the being of God and the being of man are united with one another. In other
words, the assumption that underlies Horderns rejection of Machens view of miracle
and his idea of revelation as given to man by God is a purely monistic one. Of course,
Hordern states that he believes in creation out of nothing and, of course, he believes in
miracle. He also states that he believes both in the immanence and in the
transcendence of God both in being and in knowledge. His idea of all these teachings
has been informed by modern thought. Says Hordern: Until we have a complete
143 Machen, Christianity and Liberalism, p. 105.

144 Hordern, The Case for a New Reformation Theology, p. 107.
145 James Orr, The Fundamentals for Today, Vol. 1 (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1959), p. 118.
knowledge of nature, we cannot know what is miraculous.146 And if there is to be an
infallible word of God present in the world then there must, argues Hordern, be infallible
interpreters. There simply cannot be such a God and such a revelation of God as Machen
believes in. Horderns argument against Machen is based on the a priori monistic
assumption of modern philosophy which he has uncritically adopted.
Horderns monistic assumption must not be taken to be a purely rationalist one. In
pre-Kantian rationalism, especially in the philosophy of Spinoza, the monistic assumption
of non-Christian thought had a rationalist cast. Spinoza said that the order and
connection of things is identical with the order and connection of ideas. Thus the
legislative character of mans intellectual efforts was frankly asserted. But Kant, we are
told, took time seriously. That is to say, he assumed the ultimacy of pure contingency and,
therefore, unconceptualizable raw stuff. His rational principle had no content. It was a
pure form and as such it was correlative to his raw stuff. Pure form and pure matter were
by Kant thought of as correlative to one another. Hordern is in essential agreement with
Kant. The fact that his language is that of more recent philosophers does not change this
fact. Horderns principle of unity would by itself lead to the destruction of the uniqueness
of time and therefore also, the uniqueness of history. When Christianity is interpreted in
purely rationalist terms there is obviously nothing left of creation, of sin, and of historical
redemption through the work of Christ and his Spirit. On the other hand, if Christianity is
interpreted in terms of purely irrationalist terms, then too, nothing remains of creation,
the fall of man, and redemption through Christ. For if pure rationalism, that is pure form,
is made correlative to pure irrationalism, that is pure contingency, and then this
combination is applied to creation, sin and redemption, then something that has the
appearance, though not the reality, of Christianity can be produced.
If one criticizes the irrationalism inherent in Horderns position, he can respond by
showing us that in his theology reason has a legitimate place. This means for him that he,
with the best of rationalists, holds that no such dualist position, as Machen holds with
respect to the relation of God to man, can possibly be true. If one criticizes the
rationalism inherently in Horderns position then he can respond by saying that there is
the absolutely new, the wholly other, the genuinely revelational found in human
experience. In other words, Horderns position is still basically the same as that of Roman
Catholicism. The latter combined pure equivocism and pure univocism in such a manner
as to give the appearance of a philosophy that really accords with reason while yet it
allows for the genuinely new in human experience. Hordern combines the pure
contingency and the pure form of the Kantian view of knowledge. The result is virtually
the same as the scholastic combination of pure equivocism and pure univocism.
The basic commitment of Hordern is, therefore, to a typically, post-Kantian, rational-
irrational, monism. This position is uncritically assumed to be true. Hordern has not faced
up to the basic criticism made of this position in recent times by such men as Herman
Dooyeweerd and others.147 Horderns extreme dogmatism has made it impossible for him
even to consider the framework of thought in terms of which those who today, with fun
knowledge of modern thought, hold to the traditional view of creation, sin and
redemption, and assert their belief in the miraculous character of the person and work of
Christ. His dogmatism has blinded Hordern to the fact that his modern reconstruction of

147 Cf. A New Critique of Theoretical Thought.
Christianity la Kant cannot possibly be identified with or said to have any basic
resemblance to the theology of the Reformation, notably not to that of Calvin. It were
better to use the forthright language of Edward Caldwell Moore with respect to the
relation of Reformation theology and that of post-Kantian times. Says Moore: The
philosophical revolution inaugurated by Kant, with the general drift toward monism in
the interpretation of the universe, separates from their forebearers, men who have lived
since Kant, by a greater interval than that which divided Kant from Plato. 148
The Story of Christianity, as Calvin tells it, is at bottom nothing like the Story of
Christianity as Hordern, representing the New Reformation theology, tells it. The story
as told by Calvin is to all intents and purposes the same as the story as told by Machen,
Warfield, Geerhardus Vos, Charles Hodge, Herman Bavinck and Abraham Kuyper.
This story is to the effect that the triune God has created the world and made man in
his image. The whole world, in every one of its facts, is clearly revelatory of the presence
and the gracious munificence of God. Unlike the god of Platos Timaeus, the God of
Calvins Institutes and Commentaries did not pattern the world after ideas of the true, the
good, and the beautiful that were independent of and above him. And unlike the god of
Platos Timaeus, the God of Calvin did not find an independent stuff out of which he had
to make the world. The God of Calvin was self-dependent. Man ought, therefore, to find
God, the only existing God, in nature. Man ought to discover this God in his own
constitution. To say this is not to hold to natural theology. Theology is mans response to
the revelation of God. Calvin is primarily speaking of revelation. According to Calvin,
Gods revelation to man is always and everywhere clear. It is sin that makes men pervert
the revelation of God. It is because men are sinners that their theology is evil. Sin
makes man spurn the love of God and merit his wrath, thus every man, says Calvin, is
walking in the way of death. His is a downward journey on the staircase that leads to
eternal separation from God. But God in his grace has sent his Son, our Lord Jesus
Christ, to be the redeemer of the world. He himself tells us about his work of redemption.
He who knew no sin was made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God
in him. He gives us his Spirit so that, though of ourselves we would spurn this
redemption, he enlightens our minds and quickens our hearts to receive it. Thus
redemptive revelation, as well as foundational revelation, is self-authenticating. We must
take Christ at his word. If we do so, then our reason will truly be set free. Then we can
anew enter upon the task of glorifying God in science and in art, in philosophy and in
worship. And then we are on the staircase that leads to his presence in glory forevermore.
And those who are lost forever because of their sin.
Here then is a theology in which the idea of person-to-person confrontation is more
than a slogan. In Calvins thinking man is everywhere face to face with the gracious
requirement of God to love him above all else and our neighbor as ourselves. Here the
field of science is not some realm of impersonal law through which man cannot express
either his love or his hatred of God. Here we meet a God who is truly sovereign, a God
who truly maintains absolute justice and love, uniting them in his own holy nature. This
holy nature is always back of the expressions of his will to man. Here is neither
nominalism nor realism nor a combination of the two. Here is thinking done on the basis
of the self-authenticating revelation of God. Here is a theology in which the primacy of
148 An Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant 1913, p. 5.

faith over reason means that reason or intellect is saved from the self-frustration involved
in the denial, virtual or open, of such a God and of such a Christ. Only those who know
that they are not infallible, but are, by virtue of ever present sin within them in spite of
their regeneration by the Holy Spirit, inclined to suppress this revelation, also know that
they need such a God, such a Christ and his infallible word to tell them the truth which
alone can set them free. For theirs is the knowledge that only by having such a God as
their personal God does their search for knowledge have any meaning.
Herewith we must conclude this chapter. The story of Christianity as told by Calvin
and the Reformers has in modern times been replaced by another story. The story of the
Reformers has been forced into a framework of Kantian philosophy. And this is true of
the New Reformation theology as well as of the older and newer liberalism. That is to
say, following Barth and other modern theologians, the story as told by Hordern is not
basically different from the story as it was told by the older liberals. Nor is it basically
different from the theology in liberal perspective as portrayed to us by DeWolf.
2
Chapter 2:
The Case for Theology in Liberal
Perspective
(DeWolf)
The publisher of the series of books now under discussion informs us that none of the
three authors had access to the manuscripts of the other two. Neither was any outline set
before them which all three of them were to follow. Each was provided perfect freedom
to state his case.1 There is, accordingly, a good deal of difference in the nature of the
material covered by each of the three. For our purpose, which is that of comparison, we
shall feel free to omit elements in the writing of each of the three authors not taken up by
the others.
Another prefatory remark is to the effect that our descriptive analysis of DeWolfs
book will immediately involve an element of comparison with that of Hordern. As we are
now acquainted with Horderns theology, we can at once profitably ask how the main
tenets of DeWolf differ from those of Hordern. Each of their books is supposed to set
before the reader one of the three contemporary viewpoints. The lay reader, student,
teacher, and minister are supposed to have three significantly different points of view
between which they may or must make their choice today.
In our first chapter we followed the argument of Hordern throughout his book step by
step, but even so, his material might conveniently be divided into a discussion of two
major problems. There is first, as Hordern himself suggests, the problem of method. The
problem of the relation of faith to reason, the nature of revelation and that of the criteria
1 DeWolf, The Case for Theology in Liberal Perspective (Philadelphia: Westminster
Press, 1959), Publishers Note.
of its recognition, fall under this head. In the present chapter we ask what DeWolf has to
say on these questions and how his answers differ from those of Hordern, and how
significant is the choice that we are told must be made between them. Secondly, there is
the problem of the central message of Christianity. Hordern speaks of this as the
Christian story. Under this heading the question is as to the nature of sin and of
redemption through Christ. We now ask: How does the Christian story as told by
DeWolf differ from the Christian story as told by Hordern?
1. The Difference Between the Two Positions as
DeWolf Sees It
As noted, Hordern is enthusiastically committed to the New Reformation theology
that he represents. He places a sharp contrast between the New Reformation theology and
the position of liberalism. Liberals, he argues, tend to forget the Christian message in
their desire to tell it to modern man. But DeWolf makes plain at the outset that he is not a
liberal in the usually accepted sense of the term. The popular misconception of liberalism,
he says, often springs from Reinhold Niebuhrs description of the movement. And this
description is quite mistaken. As for himself DeWolf is interested in sounding the
positive notes that were contributed by the older liberals at their best, and to show their
relevance to the historic Christian faith.2 It is, therefore, not a liberal theology but a
theology in liberal perspective that DeWolf offers. As such, its aim is catholically
human. In this theology the focus of attention is on the revelation of God to the
Christian community. But no relevant consideration drawn from human experience is
ruled out of bounds. 3
A. DeWolf is Not a Liberal
We must, therefore, by all means, argues DeWolf, maintain the uniqueness of the
Christian story. A flatly rationalist interpretation of the gospel is out of the question.
The God who reveals himself to us is One who is and must remain for us veiled in
mystery.4 And by all means this overwhelming hiddenness of God must not be
forgotten when we stand in wonder before his self-disclosure.5 A theology in liberal
perspective realizes full well that the idea of Gods transcendence is indigenous to the
Christian faith.6 Moreover, this theology is fully aware of the fact that the transcendence
and immanence of God in the world must not be stated in terms of speculative
metaphysics. When we deal with the doctrine of the trinity we, therefore, set aside the
ponderous and dated terms of Greek metaphysics and turn to the flaming testimony of
the Scriptures and of historical experience in the Christian community.7 The three
persons of the trinity, he says, are three modes in which the one God reveals himself. If
labels are to be used, it would be accurate to say that the view of the trinity here defended
is a modified Sabellianism. DeWolf adds in a note: Again the view here presented is
happily in agreement with Karl Barth. 8
2 Ibid., p. 12.
3 Ibid., p. 14.
4 Ibid., p. 85.
5 Ibid., p. 86.
6 Ibid., p. 98.
7 Ibid., p. 105.
As for man, here too, DeWolf wants to hold no narrow rationalist view. The most
important truth about man is that he is created by God for a divinely purposed destiny.9
All our hope is in God.10 We must have salvation by faith alone.11 God is one who
has created us and redeemed us, who confronts and addresses us and to whom we give
thanks and pray. In all these relations He is shown as the divine Other. Indeed, so far as
identity is concerned He is the Wholly Other, though this must not be taken to imply an
absolute unlikeness. No man created himself nor redeemed himself. In the divine-human
encounter a human being does not confront and address himself.12 In a note DeWolf
refers us to Brunners fine book by that title. 13
B. DeWolf Has No Sympathy for Fundamentalism
In the second place the difference between his view and that represented by Hordern
does not lie, according to DeWolf, in his greater sympathy for the fundamentalist
approach. In fact, he inclines to think that the new theology is in some ways in danger of
falling back into the attitude of some of the older and more belligerent, narrow, and
sterile types of fundamentalism.14 Biblical literalism, says DeWolf, needlessly drives
from the Christian faith intelligent young people who will not blind themselves to
scientific and historical evidences.15 Conservatives often give the impression that the
Christian faith is essentially unreasoning dogmatism that could not stand the light of
candid examination.16 And he adds that some of the highly sophisticated advocates of
neo-orthodox theology are doing a similar damage.17 If DeWolf defends the
immanence of God in the world, it is not the immanence of the fundamentalist, that is, the
idea of direct revelation.
Where then does the difference lie between DeWolfs view and that of neo-
orthodoxy? DeWolf answers this by saying that neo-orthodox theologians have gone too
far in their stress on the wholly other nature of God and on the primacy of faith. This fact
appears, he says, at various points in the writings of neo-orthodox writers. We shall
enumerate some of the objections DeWolf raises to the religious revolt against reason.
C. The Religious Revolt Against Reason
DeWolf asserts with vigor that Karl Barth makes an unjustified attack on natural
theology. In his zeal to defend the Reformation principles of sola Scriptura, sola Fide and
sola Gratia, Barth rejects natural theology altogether.18 Barth argues that the idea of
8 DeWolf, A Theology of the Living Church. rev. ed., (New York, Harper & Bros., 1953),
p. 279.
9 DeWolf, The Case for Theology in Liberal Perspective, p. 115.
10 Ibid., p. 126.
11 Idem.
12 DeWolf, A Theology of the Living Church, p. 118.
13 Idem.
15 Ibid., p. 43.
16 Idem.
17 Ibid., p. 44.
18 Ibid., p. 21.
natural theology leads to idol worship. He holds that natural theology leads to a denial of
total depravity. 19
But must we take the Reformers to be infallible men? Presumably they were men
and not God.20 And did not Luther and Calvin teach the positive use of natural law?21
Did they not find signs of God in his natural creation? Is it a sign of pride if we
maintain that there is some knowledge of God that is prior to, and independent of, faith
in Christ?22 Surely not. Not even Calvin taught this. Did he not say that the human mind
even by natural instinct, possesses some sense of a Deity? And did he not add that even
sin did not eradicate this?23 When Calvin speaks of Cicero and the knowledge that all
nations have of God, he does indeed argue that this knowledge is inadequate but he
grants that it is, nevertheless, knowledge of God, the same God who judges them and
who comes to us in Christ.24 How much wiser was Calvin than Barth in this matter?25
And even Calvins notion of total depravity extreme as it is, is a model of moderation
and good sense in comparison with Barths, who says that because of it there is no point
of contact for the gospel in man at all.26 It is unfortunate, argues DeWolf, that neo-
orthodox theologians have, in spite of their rejection of the fundamentalist view of
revelation, nevertheless insulated the intellectual content of their religious faith against
all modern learning.27 Teaching the radical discontinuity of revelation and everything
human, they declare that Christian doctrine is not in need of any rational defense. It is
simply to be declared and accepted by faith. If this procedure results in inner
contradictions, these inconsistencies are simply praised as the paradoxes inherent in the
Christian gospel as seen by sinful men.28 The evil result of this is that the declarations
of faith and declarations of scepticism confront each other without even honest effort to
find a common language of communication. 29
Here then we seem to have the heart of the difference, as DeWolf sees it, between his
view and that of what he calls neo-orthodoxy. It may be summed up in the following
points: (1) The Paradox as Used by the Revolters Threatens the Very Possibility of
Communication.30 (2) If God is in no way analogous to man or to any other object of
rational experience, then for man all meaning is removed from the word God. 31 (3)
The religious revolters against reason are at the mercy of the first fanatic that presses his
faith upon them. Reason is Needed to Distinguish between True and False
19 Ibid., p. 22.
20 Idem.
21 Ibid., p. 23.
22 Ibid., p. 24.
23 Idem.
24 Ibid., p. 29.
25 Idem.
26 Idem.
27 Ibid., p. 44.
28 Idem.
29 Idem.
30 DeWolf, The Religious Revolt Against Reason, (New York: Harper and Bros., 1949), p.
141.
31 Ibid., p. 143.
Revelations.32 Moreover, (4) Faith Must Be Commended Either by Word or Example,
Either One Being an Appeal to Reason.33 The Revolters against Reason do not realize
this. And indeed our modern Tertullians use every rational device they can muster in
their arguments against opposing views. 34
When, therefore, Hordern argues that liberalism is so anxious to communicate the
gospel to the modern man that it tends to lose the gospel it wants to communicate,
DeWolf replies that neo-orthodoxy is in danger of being unable to communicate the
gospel that it claims to have.
2. DeWolf on Methodology
It is for us then to discover in greater detail how DeWolf would make certain that we
can tell the Christian story to the generation of our day. As Hordern has made sure that
it is the Christian story that is told, so DeWolf wants to make sure that we can tell it. How
does he seek to tell it?
A. Comprehensive Coherence
When DeWolf states his constructive position with respect to the question of
methodology, he does so in terms of his principle of Comprehensive Coherence.35 The
reason of comprehensive coherence seems the most adequate rational instrument for
discerning truth. Its superiority to more abstract and limited procedures is especially
evident in dealing with the problems which are of chief concern in religion. Religion has
to do with a mans relation to the whole of existence.36 The method of comprehensive
coherence may not be identified with the method of rationalism. We must build our
knowledge upon data which existence thrusts into our experience.37 On the other hand,
we need, besides the data of experience, certain assumptions or postulates which no
appeal to the data can establish and which reason cannot prove without assuming them
while proof is attempted. We must assume the principle of consistency itself. If genuinely
contradictory ideas can be true at once, then no argument for or against any conclusion
whatever has the slightest force. Before we can learn much about existing reality we must
also assume the validity of such basic categories of perception and thought as time,
causality and quantity; likewise the essential integrity of our reasoning powers and their
freedom to weigh evidence. 38
If then we are to follow the data of experience, it follows that absolute, proved
certainty on any problem concerning reality is not attainable.39 This leaves room for
faith. For faith in the broadest sense, is a commitment of the will to an object not
indisputably proved worthy of such commitment.40 Moreover, faith is not only possible;
it is inevitable.41 As a person man must make his choices pertaining to matters of which
32 Ibid., p. 146.
33 Ibid., p. 148.
34 Idem.
36 Idem.
37 Ibid., p. 29.
38 Ibid., p. 30.
39 Ibid., p. 32.
40 Ibid., p. 37.
41 Ibid., p. 38.
he can attain no certain knowledge.42 Man can have faith in the unproved or
incompletely proved. Man must have faith in some ideas and objectives.43 But man
ought to have faith in more reasonable alternatives rather than in the less reasonable
ones.44 Man must seek the greater rational probability.45 And this faith must be a
strong faith. The pioneers and pathfinders of the world are typified by Abraham, who,
by faith went out, not knowing where he was to go. 46 A thoroughgoing faith47
requires open-mindedness for new light that may break forth upon us.48 Commitment to
Christ must be wholehearted. But if it is to be wholehearted, then the gospel must not be
considered to be an irrational doctrine to be held in spite of preponderant contrary
evidence.49 Most claims of revelation which we need to take seriously are not
concerned with propositional presentations of truth, but with Gods disclosure of
Himself. 50
The method of comprehensive coherence then is a balanced method. It allows for
faith, even for a leap of faith. For faith is in the nature of the case a leap beyond the
relative probability of evidence.51 Even so our faith must be a rational faith. When the
evidence indicates where truth lies, then the reasonable man commits himself to that
truth.52 For example, a man may have found that many ideas he has learned from the
New Testament have given to his experience new coherence and rich meaningfulness. He
therefore develops high respect for the authority of the New Testament and accepts on
faith other ideas found there. This is, of course, a rational extension of belief, whether or
not adequately justified in a given instance. On the other hand, if a man literally believes
with no reason to believe, he is being recklessly irresponsible. 53
B. The Reasonable Man
Back of the method of comprehensive coherence lies the notion of the reasonable
man. It is he who constructs the method.
The method is what it is because the man constructing it is what he is. DeWolf calls
him the reasonable man. This reasonable man is not given to extremes. He knows that the
mood and thought of our age require that the gospel be communicated in terms
intelligible and persuasive to twentieth century minds.54 Deeply conscious of this fact,
the believer presents Christianity as that which any reasonable man ought to be quite
ready to accept even in terms of his own principles. He assumes that all men are
reasonable as he himself is reasonable, that is, all men, except certain extremists, are
reasonable.
42 Idem.
43 Ibid., p. 39.
44 Idem.
45 Ibid., p. 41.
46 Idem.
47 Ibid., p. 43.
48 Ibid., p. 44.
49 Idem.
50 Ibid., p. 36.
52 Idem.
53 Ibid., pp. 41, 42.
54 Ibid., p. 43.
There are those who want demonstration for whatever they will believe. But this can
be shown to be unreasonable. It is only in mathematics that demonstration can be had. It
is really only in purely formal relations that demonstration is needed. In no field of
factual research is it possible to have demonstration. So why should reasonable men
object, to Christianity on the ground that it cannot furnish demonstration for its assertions
with respect to God and Christ?
On the other hand, there are the irrationalists. To them we can only address ourselves
in Reasons Defense. Kierkegaard has maintained that reason continually seeks to
know existence but that in order to do so it must commit suicide.55 But he is quite
mistaken. Even the relationship of man to God is by no means devoid of all mediation
by universals.56 The God who saves us does indeed demand that we give ourselves. But
this which he demands is a reasonable service. 57 To be sure, man is not God nor any
aspect nor part of Him.58 His being and ours do not overlap at any point.59 Even so
reality as such is truly attributed both to God and to man.60 And nothing is clearer than
that the New Testament attributes the same kind of love both to God and to man.61 If
we are capable, by Gods grace, of experiencing the kind of love which He also
experiences, then we have something exceedingly important in common with Him.62
And even the relations in which we are most obviously different from God are shared
relations. Both God and man participated in creation: God by creating, and man by being
created. Both God and man are involved in redemption: God by redeeming, man by being
redeemed. Even such relations may well serve as bridges over which reason can pass. 63
Moreover, what is true of the relation of God to man in general is true also of the
incarnation. Kierkegaard may speak of the incarnation as being the absolute Paradox.
But if, as the Dane himself asserts, God did really become man and die as man, then it
is clear that, despite the Danes contrary assertion, divinity and humanity do have
something in common. If there were absolutely nothing analogous in the life of man
and the life of God, then for God to become man would be not only a miracle passing all
bounds of understanding; it would be an utterly meaningless miracle.64 Surely there is
something quite absurd in the irrationalists insisting that human knowledge of God is
impossible, while at the same time they continue to describe Him in various conceptual
terms.65 The revolters have argued that the New Testament and the Church Fathers are
irrationalistic and that the gospel is fundamentally paradoxical. However, these
55 DeWolf, The Religious Revolt Against Reason, p. 124.

56 Ibid., p. 125.
57 Idem.
58 Ibid., p. 126.
59 Idem.
60 Idem.
61 Idem.
62 Ibid., p. 126.
63 Ibid., p. 126 f.
64 Ibid., p. 127.
65 Idem.
objections appear to be based on misunderstanding or exaggeration.66 If the revolters
were fight all communication would cease. 67
The revolters seem to think that all rational knowledge is of the kind described by
epistemological monists.68 But, says DeWolf, epistemological monism is also irrational.
The only rational position is that of epistemological dualism.69 The belief in reason, so
far from implying pantheism implies the denial of it.70 Would we live by Gods word of
truth? Then we must dedicate our reason as the God-given instrument of its
discriminating and understanding reception. Come now, let us reason together, says the
Lord. 71
C. A Common Language of Communication
(1) Natural Theology
By means of his balanced position DeWolf has rediscovered a way of communication
with the great theologians of the past. Without committing us to outmoded Greek
metaphysics, he has none-the-less retained the value of natural theology. By natural
theology is here meant the learning of some truth about God or about mans rightful
destiny from considerations logically independent of the Biblical revelation and of a prior
commitment to Christian faith. For example, all five of Thomas Aquinas famous
philosophical arguments for God are exercises in natural theology. So also is F. R.
Tennants wider teleological argument. All ethical concepts of natural law, that is, moral
law discoverable by philosophical method from broad considerations of reason and
common human experience, are instances of natural theology.72 Natural theology
includes Socrates belief in eternal unwritten laws; Platos references to evidences of
Gods wisdom in the order of nature.73 DeWolf mentions many Christian theologians
who have used natural theology in approach to the Biblical doctrine, in communication
with non-Christians, or in other ways.74 Among these he mentions John Calvin as well
as Thomas Aquinas.75 Did not Calvin insist that the human mind even by natural instinct,
possesses some sense of a Deity? 76
To insist on the fact and importance of natural theology is not, DeWolf asserts, to do
despite to grace. For the capacity of all men for the knowledge of God may be regarded
as a residue of the Imago Dei, given by Gods creative grace.77 Actually, if one regards
all men as existing by the sustaining grace of God, then there is no such thing as a
natural man without the grace of God.There is no nature apart from grace. 78
66 Ibid., p. 133.
67 Ibid., p. 141.
68 Ibid., p. 132.
69 Ibid., p. 133.
70 Idem.
72 Ibid., p. 19.
73 Idem.
74 Idem.
75 Idem.
76 Ibid., p. 24.
77 Ibid., p. 25.
78 Idem.
And what of the argument, so often adduced, that the God arrived at through natural
theology is not identical with the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ?79 This argument,
says DeWolf, is invalid. Why should not natural and revealed theology intend to refer to
the same God even though each gives a different description of him? When some people
speak of the president of the First National Bank in Centerville others may speak of Mr.
William A. Smith, and yet others of Daniel Smiths father. But they all refer to the same
man?80 All that is necessary for having the same objective referent is that the two
accounts have something in common. 81
Again when Barth asserts that God is inconceivable we need only to point out that he
himself defends the propriety of the concept person. 82
What needs to be done then, over against the Barthian tendency toward irrationalism,
is to insist (a) that such men as Socrates, Plato, Cicero, Seneca, Epictetus, Justin Martyr,
Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine, Anselm,
Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Raymond of Sabunde, John Calvin, Richard Hooker,
Hugo Grotius, the Cambridge Platonists, Richard Baxter, John Locke, Joseph Butler,
John Wesley and many writers of more recent times all have the same objective
referent83 when they speak of God, and (b) that the proper objective is not to avoid
concepts of God but to seek accurate concepts to represent faithfully the referent
intended. 84
(2) Communication with Unbelievers
We may now go one step further. Natural theology is an expression of the method of
comprehensive coherence. As such it establishes communication with such great
movements of thought as are suggested by the names mentioned above. But natural
theology also provides a bridge for communication and intellectual cooperation of
Christian theology with the natural and social sciences.85 In the communication of
Christian faithand Christian theologyto unbelievers, natural theology is so valuable
as to be well-nigh indispensable. 86
Current theologians who renounce the possibility of natural theology are giving
comfort to the deadliest enemies of the Christian faith to be found in the world today. 87
Do not Christians want to tell the Christian story? They have themselves found that
Christ, the Word made flesh, gives new meaning to life. In him things hang together and
make sense.88 Christ is for us, as believers, the way, the truth and the life. Whatever
conflicts with him opposes the whole matchless harmony and integrity of the life that is
centered in him. Such discordant ideas or enticements must therefore be resisted as
falsehoods and temptations.89 If then we want men to accept this Christ, we must be
79 Idem.
80 Ibid., p. 26.
81 Idem.
82 Ibid., p. 28.
83 Ibid., pp. 19, 20.
84 Ibid., p. 29.
85 Ibid., p. 33.
86 Ibid., pp. 33, 34.
87 Ibid., p. 36.
88 Ibid., p. 38.
89 Idem.
willing to present him as ready to submit his claims to other relevant tests of
experience.90 We may well accept from Niebuhr the assurance that the Christian faith
involves suprarational affirmations. But we ask In what sense are these affirmations
suprarational? Certainly they are not learned by deductive logic. But are they beyond
discursive exposition and critical rational evaluation? By no means.91 All such
affirmations are to be tested by the criterion known in philosophy as empirical
coherence.92 Not irrational faith or faithless reason is the need of the hour, but
reasonable faith and faith-filled reason. 93
We are quite mistaken if we think we can communicate the Christian story if we set
the authority of the Bible over against all other authority.94 The legitimate task of the
Christian thinker is clearly to enter into genuine communication with the culture of his
day, but to keep himself steeped in the historic teachings of the Bible and the church. 95
3. DeWolfs View of the Christian Story
The question now is whether in establishing his two-way communication with the
unbeliever DeWolf has really retained the Christian story. Is he telling unbelievers
anything that they have not already told themselves? If the method of comprehensive
coherence has itself grown out of experience without benefit of teaching by Him who
said He was the way the truth and the life, then is it not the unbeliever who is really
telling the believer a story? If the God of pagan philosophers such as Plato is the same as
the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, then is there any point to telling men of the claims of
him who said, No one comes to the Father but by me? Or if Christians none-the-less tell
the Christian story to unbelievers, are not then these unbelievers virtually urged to reject
this story as the dream of a fanatic? Have not we ourselves as Christian believers agreed
with the unbeliever that he should accept no story as true unless he can himself see that it
meets the test of empirical coherence?
In particular, what about the president of the First National Bank of Centerville? Here
are the Greek philosophers. They have by natural theology attained to the idea of God.
But the God to which they have attained is clearly that of an abstract form which, in order
to have contact with the world, must become correlative to it. And here is the God of the
Bible, the triune God who exists from all eternity independently of the world and then
creates the world by the power of his will. Does the difference between the conceptual
framework of the Bible and the conceptual framework of Greek philosophy have no more
significance than does the difference between those who speak of a certain man as the
president of the bank and others who speak of him as Mr. William A. Smith? If this
should be the case, then is there any point to seeking for accurate concepts about God at
all? Is not then God himself to be identified with the principle of the apeiron of
Anaximander? And how then dare we speak of the reason of man as being created by
God and as being the instrument by which we receive the revelation of God? Should we
then not rather, with Kant, speak of mans reason as autonomous and as being surrounded
90 Idem.
91 Ibid., p. 40.
92 Idem.
93 Ibid., p. 45.
94 Ibid., p. 57.
95 Ibid., p. 59.
with a shoreless and bottomless sea of pure contingency? Is all this and more to be the
price that we as believers must pay in order to have the unbeliever listen to our story?
Have we not then lost all coherence in our experience, let alone having comprehensive
coherence? If with Aristotle we on the one hand deny the claims of the definition-
mongers, and on the other hand shun those who are no better than a plant, have we not
committed ourselves to the necessity of riding off in opposite directions at the same time?
Is not then the one direction that of monistic rationalism and the other that of pure
rationalism?
Of course, DeWolf would be horrified to think that we would even think of asking
such questions at this point. Why do we not first listen to him further and see what he
thinks the Christian story to be? Does he not tell us plainly what the Christian story is
like? And does he not show that the Christian story comports fully with the method of
comprehensive coherence?
The reasonable man, he says, uses the comprehensive reason of coherence. This is
the reason used in effective search for truth everywhere.96 And when the
comprehensive reason of this kind is directed to the study of the New Testament, many
uniquely valuable clues to reality are found there. The sweet reasonableness of divine
love and mercy shines through the pages of the New Testament with a greater brilliance
the more critically it is examined. Its message is wonderful beyond comparison. 97
Let us then briefly follow the reasonable man as he applies his method first to the
question of God and then to that of Christ.
A. DeWolfs Theism
It has been noted earlier that, both in the interest of understanding the Christian story
and in the interest of telling it, DeWolf thinks natural theology to be important.
Fortunately, he has himself set forth his views on this subject.
The human individual has not always been.He is a creature of God.98 This means
that man is free. He has a free will. Man has an immediate intuition of this fact?99
This freedom is the postulate of the moral life. Intelligent men knowingly attribute to
others responsibility only within the bounds of their powers.100 Freedom is also the
postulate of intellectual life. In my thinking I am not driven by inexorable
determinism.101 If all reasoning is mechanically determined by the past, then any proof
advanced to show that it is so determined is likewise so determined and no mind is free to
weigh evidence for or against this belief. 102
Mans freedom then is both a divine endowment103 and a present achievement.104
Man is, to be sure, subject to the powers of his environment. And these are beyond his
96 DeWolf, The Religious Revolt Against Reason, p. 209.

97 Ibid., p. 210.
99 Ibid., p. 171.
100 Ibid., p. 172.
101 Ibid., p. 173.
102 Idem.
103 Ibid., p. 176.
104 Ibid., p. 177.
control.105 But this does not take away the fact that we can observe such human
characteristics which mark man, in his concrete reality, as like God: 106
1. As a human person, man has a spiritual nature which distinguishes him from the
lower creatures and likens him to God. 107
2. Our sense of duty aligns us with God.
3. The human race seems incurably religious. Without the proper relation of mans
nature to God no man can gain the completion of himself. 108
4. Man has ineradicable aspirations to goodness. 109
It is this free man, who, with all his aspirations, looks for God. Man realizes that as
man, in all his moral and intellectual aspirations and defeats, he is incomplete without
God. The idea of truth as objective requires the idea of God. An idea apart from any
thinking mind seems about as intelligible as the grin of a Cheshire cat apart from the
cat.110 This is the upper limit of mans environment. The nether limit is represented by
the idea of causal law. But this, as well as the idea of abstract thought, requires the notion
of mind. For what is usually caned a causal law is plainly a formula.111 These formulas
as we know them have been created by the minds of men. Where and how did they have
their being before men first discovered them?112 Clearly the very idea of causal law
requires the notion of a cosmic mind. Until a better explanation of the universal order
appears, the belief in a Supreme Intelligence is a reasonable faith. 113
We can even see evidences of apparent purpose in nature. The directional
movement of evolution is not adequately explained by the principle of the survival of the
fittest. Thus the appearance is that there is a purpose operative in nature quite apart
from the purposive efforts of human beings or any other creatures. How else shall this be
explained excepting by reference to a purposive cosmic Person? 114
What kind of God does man have a right to believe in? It would seem to go without
saying then that the God that is called for by DeWolfs method of comprehensive
coherence is unconditioned. For God must be the ground of those absolute ideal norms
which give purposeful direction and meaning to existence.115 But it is also clear that, as
over against the irrationalists, DeWolf wants no God who is out of all relation to human
experience.
Human experience is of a spatio-temporal nature. We ask then how God is related to
space and time. As to space, God is not confined by it and yet is operative everywhere.116
As to time, God is seeking to shape the present to a future which is not yet.117
105 Ibid., p. 178.

106 Ibid., p. 205.
107 Idem.
108 Ibid., pp. 206, 207.
109 Ibid., pp. 206, 207.
110 Ibid., p. 49.
111 Idem.
112 Idem.
113 Ibid., p. 50. cf. p. 91.
114 Ibid., p. 50f.
115 Ibid., p. 97.
116 Ibid., p. 98.
117 Ibid., p. 100.
Accordingly he is not a timeless being.118 He is aware of all changes in the world and so
we conclude that there must be changes in His own consciousness.119 Yet other being is
relative to time while God is co-eternal with time.120 His fundamental nature must be
as unchanging as the timeless laws of implication which are grounded in Him. He may in
this sense be spoken of as eternal in contrast to all things which change with the passing
of time. 121
But the relation of God to space and time comes to its most significant expression in
relation to the moral and religious aspirations of man. And this relation may be expressed
in the one word love. Gods holiness and his righteousness, however expressed, are
always subsumed under his love. The supreme righteousness known to the Christian
community, is love.122 God is one who gives Himself in creation of other persons to
share His bounty and in reconciliation to win their faith for this sharing. All that we know
of God we know through His love. It is through His going forth in creation and other
revelations of Himself that He is shown to us. 123
If then God is himself thus involved in the process of evolutionary development in
space and through time, what remains of his transcendence? DeWolf replies: (a) that God
is more than his creation, (b) that he is other than ourselves, (c) that he is other than the
material universe.124 As thus transcendent, he is immanent in the world in that (a) he now
sustains us (b) in that the norms of our right thoughts are ordained by him (c) in that he
knows our very thoughts (d) in that his activity continually affects our experience and (e)
and in that he appears immediately to our religious consciousness. 125
The reader may object at this point and urge that in our description of natural
theology we have already entered upon the field of special revelation. We reply that there
was no avoiding this. DeWolf himself thinks of Scriptures teaching with respect to God
as a reflection of human experience by certain religious people. The content of Scripture
must be tested in terms of the spirit of Christ126 and this in turn related to the test of
comprehensive coherence.
The total product of the effort of the interpretation man makes of himself and his
word in relation to the beyond is that he finds a God who is and must remain for us
veiled in mystery.127 When truly encountered God is mysterium and tremendum. The
allusion is to Rudolf Ottos book. 128
Even so, in spite of this overwhelming hiddenness of God,129 we hold that there is
evidence strongly favoring belief in a reason actively controlling the natural processes, a
reason analogous to human reason at its best. We may call such cosmic reason X, if we
118 Ibid., p. 101.

119 Idem.
120 Ibid., p. 102.
121 Idem.
122 Ibid., p. 115.
123 Idem.
124 Ibid., pp. 118, 119.
125 Ibid., pp. 121, 122.
127 Ibid., p. 85.
128 Otto, The Idea of the Holy, (New York: Oxford Univ. Press), p. 86.
like, rather than God. But we are then free to inquire what other attributes X must
have. If the cosmic X is a reason actively controlling the structures of natural process,
we must regard that X as being able to project its own meanings in action. This is
precisely what we mean by a rational will. X, then, is to be regarded as a being
characterized by reason and will.130 From this point on we should be entitled to call X
God. For the guiding, rational will controlling the world process and en rapport with man
at his rational and moral best would be universally known as God, even though much that
the Christian believes about God is not revealed in these considerations about nature and
our scientific knowledge of it. 131
Once we have called X God, we go on to call him personal. And then we think of
him as the one who creates and acts upon his creation according to his loving purpose.
132
The Christian then goes on to speak of God who acts in history on our behalf, and
especially as the love incarnate in Jesus Christ. 133
B. DeWolfs Christ
We go on now from Theism to Christianity, from God to Christ. As we do so we are
immediately confronted with the idea of the Trinity. How can we speak of God as one
and also speak of Christ or the Holy Spirit as being God?
To answer this question we must not, with Kierkegaard and other irrationalists, argues
DeWolf, glory in the idea of absolute paradox. If the Three and One were literally
beyond understanding and hence beyond the most basic requirements of logic, then they
would be to us only syllables signifying nothing. Communication consisting of words
without understanding is no communication. Before total mystery, silence would be more
fitting than polysyllabic but senseless verbiage.
Actually, I am confident that the doctrine of the Trinity is to be properly understood
neither as a veiled, ambiguous tritheism nor as irrational mystery-mongering. If its true
significance is to be understood in our day, however, we must look beyond the ponderous
and dated terms of Greek metaphysics to the flaming testimony of the Scriptures and of
historical experience in the Christian community. 134
When then we look at Jesus and ask in what sense he may be called God, the reply is,
that in him God was seen at work as self-giving, illuminating, healing, saving Love.135
Did we not earlier find that as eternal God is always present in the temporal? We are,
accordingly, to cast aside all ideas of pretemporal substantiality of the Son (or of the
Spirit) with the Father. It is doubtful that anywhere in the New Testament Jesus is
directly said to be God. 136
The Chalcedon creed; affirmation with respect to the relations of the divine and
human nature to one another seems to our ears archaic and unrealistic.137 Greek
130 Ibid., p. 87.

131 Idem.
132 Ibid., p. 90.
133 Ibid., p. 91.
134 Ibid., p. 105.
135 Ibid., p. 107.
137 Ibid., p. 242.
metaphysics shines through every word of it. We need a Christological
Reconstruction.138 We need a Christ that accords with our revised modalism.
This revised modalism alone can meet the requirement of our method. Our method
requires that we postulate a God who, in accord with our highest moral and intellectual
aspirations, may be spoken of as identical in being with victorious love. Accordingly
Christs identity with God is an identity of purpose. And so far as this identity of purpose
was embodied in Jesus, it was an identity with a difference. Jesus was able, only by the
grace of God to do the Fathers will. And because he understood the will of God toward
men as no other had ever done and was perfectly faithful in the subjecting of his will to
the Fathers will, God was able to speak and act in mighty deed through him as through
no other. 139
Could not God have chosen other persons to take the high place to which Jesus was
called? Why did God wait so long before this supreme revelation? And why has he not
called others since that time?140 The answer is that God may, for all we know, have
called others before Jesus, others who faltered and failed to fulfil that hard vocation.141
And after him no other could come, for even if some one should come who would be
like Jesus in every possible respect, that one would still be unlike Jesus in this all-
important respect, that Jesus came first.142 Jesus is the pioneer and perfecter of our
faith.143 Jesus will was freely subjected to Gods control. Therefore, God was the true
Cause of Jesus teaching, action and thought. Thus Jesus teachings and work were
teachings and work of God. The very life of Jesus was, therefore, included in the process
of Gods own activity without being any the less the freely chosen life of the man Jesus.
144
DeWolf rejoices in the fact that the categories of thought developed in modern
times enable us to enjoy a more intelligible approach to the question of the trinity than
our fathers had.145 And the main point is that we have learned to forget metaphysics.
When we think of the trinity, our minds no longer seek the dark abyss of an eternity back
of time. On the contrary, we find in history three revelations of the redemptive work of
the God of love. These revelations are not the work of three individuals, however,
closely united in harmonious purpose. They are the work of one God. But He is not in
His true nature a being to whom these revelations are foreign and unrepresentative, as the
roles of an actor may be.146 The one God truly reveals himself as creator, historical self-
revealer and self-giving presence. 147
We recall that DeWolf is happy to be in agreement with Barth on this basically
important doctrine of the trinity. Both Barth and DeWolf seek, in dead earnest to be
antimetaphysical. Therefore both hold to what Barth calls the revelational view of the
138 Ibid., p. 243.

139 Ibid., p. 251.
140 Ibid., p. 253.
141 Idem.
142 Idem.
143 Ibid., p. 254.
144 Ibid., p. 255.
145 Ibid., p. 278.
146 Ibid., p. 278 f.
147 Idem.
trinity. The significance of this agreement on the doctrine of the trinity will presently
engage us. For the moment we mention it for the purpose of explaining DeWolfs view of
Reconciliation.
C. DeWolfs View of Reconciliation
DeWolfs method of comprehensive coherence required a modalist or revelational
view of the trinity. The principle of unity involved in DeWolfs method allows for no
plurality except that which appears because of the manifestation of this principle in time
and space. At the same time this principle of unity is always present in time. Accordingly
the work of the triune God, the work of creation and redemption, is one work, and a
work that is always going on and will always go on. There is no such thing as a fall into
sin at a certain point in history.148 There is no such thing as original sin in the traditional
sense of the term.149 Such a doctrine is both irrational and blasphemous.150 When we
speak of origins we need to use symbols. And the same is true of eschatology. 151
DeWolf speaks of the need of a reconstruction of eschatology. To find such a
reconstruction we need first a reconstruction of the idea of reconciliation. We must realize
that the Son of man is the embodiment of Gods purpose for man. Hence, he is the very
incarnation of the judgment. 152
And what then of the Cross?153 Must we hold to the classic, traditional or
orthodox view of atonement?154 No, we again turn to the development of modern modes
of thought. We now have such varied experiences as those of mediation in international
and industrial disputes. We have such things as marital counseling and psychiatry.155
We are now no longer afraid of saying that God suffered.156 Such novelists as Dostoevski
have taught us guilt at its deeper levels must be shared before it can be purged.157
Accordingly the gospel invites the sinner to see Christ on the cross praying for the
forgiveness of his foes and beyond him to behold God who already loves all sinners and
bears the shame of their guilt with his Son on the cross because they too are His
children.
The sinner who becomes acquainted with the guilt-sharing God of Calvary knows
that he is not alone. He is not a man whose sins and misery are of no concern to anyone.
He knows that the supreme God of righteousness, the Judge of all men, cares for him. He
knows that God seeks not to condemn him for his sin but to take from him the burden of
his sin. 158
148 Ibid., pp. 196198.

149 Ibid., p. 198.
150 Idem.
151 Ibid., p. 282.
152 Ibid., p. 283.
153 Ibid., p. 256.
154 Ibid., p. 261.
155 Ibid., p. 264.
156 Ibid., p. 265.
157 Ibid., p. 268.
158 Idem.
Such then is the objective aspect of reconciliation. Corresponding to it is the
subjective aspect consisting of the new birth.159 Looking at them together we learn that
Gods love is manifest in that he suffers with every sufferer and for every sinner. 160
With such a view of reconciliation the modern man rejects the traditional view of
final judgment as involving an absolute division between people whose actual moral
differences a careful ethical analysis shows to be far from absolute. Psychological and
ethical study shows that human beings simply cannot be divided into two classes, the
good and the bad. 161
4. A Comparison of DeWolf and Hordern
The views of Hordern as presented in our first chapter have served as a background
for the present chapter. How significantly does the position of DeWolf differ from that of
Hordern? We may now state our answer to this question more pointedly than was
previously possible. We shall ask and try to answer two main questions; first, how does
the method of DeWolf differ from the method of Hordern, and second, how does the
Christian story as told by DeWolf differ from the Christian story as told by Hordern.
A. A Comparison of the Method of DeWolf with that of
Hordern
DeWolf speaks of his method as being that of comprehensive coherence. Is there
anything in what Hordern says on method that would conflict with DeWolfs view?
Hordern speaks of method under the question of (a) faith and reason, (b) the nature of
revelation, and (c) the criteria of revelation. If we glance afresh at what he says under
these headings, we shall soon discover that his view of method is, in its ingredients, if not
in its name, essentially the same as that of DeWolf. On the other hand, what DeWolf has
to say on these subjects is essentially the same as what Hordern says on them.
(1) Faith and Reason
The New Reformation theology which Hordern defends is, he says, deeply concerned
to assert the primacy of faith over reason. Hordern is so deeply concerned with this
because he wants to maintain intact the gospel as taught by the Reformers. If we start
with reason and its product, natural theology, argues Hordern, then we must end with an
abstract, a conceptually constructed deity, and with a Christ who is not unique. If our God
is to be the God of the Bible, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and if Christ is to be our
Saviour and Lord, then we must listen to them from the outset. We must interpret
ourselves, our world, our all in relation to the redemptive work of Christ. Logic tells us
that we can prove nothing by analogy. 162
In seemingly direct opposition to this, DeWolf insists that our beginning must be with
reason and its product natural theology. If we do not begin with natural theology, then our
gospel will be the gospel of the irrationalist, the gospel of the unknown God and the
unknown Christ. If there is no analogy between God and man, then man knows nothing
of God. For then if Christ is God, we know nothing of Christ.
The difference between Hordern and DeWolf on the question of the relation of faith
and reason is, however, more apparent than real.
159 Ibid., p. 287 ff.
160 Ibid., p. 266.
161 Ibid., p. 281.
Following Karl Barth, Hordern constantly assures us that what he means by faith is
not credentia, belief in the irrational. As Barth assures us over and over that his theology
demands no sacrificium intellectus, so Hordern assures us over and over that by faith he
means simply the prerational framework within which reason works. Faith is not a
conclusion lacking verification: it is rather the presupposition of all verification. We
cannot reach God otherwise than by faith. The analytical philosophers have told us so.
And do not the philosophical theologians, if they want to reach God, also, in effect,
affirm the primacy of faith? And finally do not the most rational enterprises, like
mathematics, etc., begin their reasoning by faith? 163
On his part DeWolf is perfectly willing to ascribe a place to the decisiveness of
practical faith as a leap beyond the relative probability of evidence.164 He wants a
reasonable faith and faith-filled reason.165 He too, wants a faith, such as is used by all
reasonable men in all their enterprises. And he knows that there is no nature apart from
grace. His reason is based both on Gods creative and sustaining grace.166 His reason
is a tool given to man by God for the reception of revelation. As such the revolters
against reason do actually use it.
It is to be noted then that the difference between Hordern and DeWolf is mainly one
of emphasis. Hordern stresses the need of faith and DeWolf that of reason, and that is all.
Nor is it any wonder that this is all. For the faith that is stressed by Hordern needs the
reason that is stressed by DeWolf, and the reason that is stressed by DeWolf needs the
faith that is stressed by Hordern. Without DeWolfs kind of reason, Horderns faith would
be meaningless mysticism or irrationalism, and without Horderns kind of faith DeWolfs
reason would be the reason of pure rationalism with its identity of God and man.
Accordingly their opposition on the question of analogy is also merely one of stress.
Encouraged by the analytical philosophers and by Barth, Hordern uses very strong
negative language about the power of analogy as used by the liberals. He says, that
logic itself teaches us that we can know nothing about God by analogy. But then, like
Barth, he goes about freely using the very analogy he has so vigorously rejected.
According to Barth the wholly other God must be wholly known if known at all. For
Hordern we must be omniscient to know that a miracle is really a miracle. It is this sort of
purely rationalist notion of human knowledge that Hordern, following Barth, uses freely
as the correlative to the idea that God is wholly unknown. It is precisely this idea of pure
or absolute and comprehensive knowledge that both Barth and Hordern need if they are
not to shut up shop altogether as theologians.
On the other hand, DeWolf uses very strong negative language with respect to the
revolters against reason. But he himself wants no rationalist form of reason. He wants a
reason that listens to the data of experience. He wants the reason not of a man that is
determined by reason but of the free man who determines the coherence of experience by
the laws that are intuitive to itself. For his notion of analogy he needs the idea of pure
irrationality as Hordern, for his notion of analogy needs the idea of pure rationality. To all
intents and purposes then, the idea of analogy is the same for Hordern and for DeWolf.
163 Ibid., p. 39f.

165 Ibid., p. 45.
166 Ibid., p. 25.
The idea of faith and of its relation to reason as held by these two men may still more
clearly be seen to be basically the same when we note that they find their common enemy
in the idea of analogy as held by Reformed theologians. Both Hordern and DeWolf reject
the whole approach of the relation between faith and reason as held by those whom they
speak of as fundamentalists or evangelicals. The basic point they are both opposing in
these fundamentalists is the idea these fundamentalists hold in common with the
Reformers and notably with Calvin. Calvins Institutes presupposes at every point and
teaches on many a page the idea that the world was actually created and is sustained by
the God who from all eternity existed by himself independently of the world. Therefore,
the whole world is a revelation of God. Not only the facts of mans environment but
mans psychological constitution itself is first of all and inherently a revelation of God. It
is by virtue of this fact of the inherently revelational nature of all created reality that man
unavoidably knows God.
It is this point precisely that is rejected by both DeWolf and Hordern. Both hold to a
form of what we have already spoken of in the first chapter as the freedom-nature scheme
of Kant. Both use phraseology inherited from historical Christian theology and especially
from the Reformers, but both hold with Kant that the basic concepts of experience are
those of the absolutely free or autonomous man and the absolutely self-operating realm of
spatio-temporal causality. The kerygmatic theology of Hordern and the rational theology
of DeWolf are alike informed by this modern freedom-nature scheme. It is from the point
of view of this scheme or framework that both are equally opposed to the dualism of
the fundamentalist. For both men the faith of the fundamentalist is a blind faith and the
reason that he is forced to use is made subservient to this blind faith; it is a reason that is
enslaved rather than free.
(2) The Nature of Revelation
The differences between the idea of the relation of faith and reason as held by DeWolf
and as held by Hordern are differences within the framework of the freedom-nature
scheme of modern post-Kantian thought. The same may now be briefly noted to be true
with respect to their seemingly very different views of the nature of revelation.
Both men are equally anxious to have the revelation of God come to modern man in
such categories as he already uses. Hordern wants the God of the Bible to speak in terms
of himself. God, he says, reveals God. But precisely, because God must reveal himself in
the Bible, do we need to accept the principles of historical criticism.167 Historical
criticism and analytical philosophy have reduced our idols to dust. Fundamentalism
still worships these idols. It still believes in revelation as that which gives doctrinal
content, content conceptually manipulated, to man.
As for DeWolf, though he defends the need of finding accurate concepts for the
understanding of revelation, he is just as certain as is Hordern that the revelation that
comes to man must be of such a nature as will fit into his freedom-nature scheme. If any
revelation of the purpose of God appears in nature, or if any manifestation of the power
of redemption through Christ appears there, it must be at the same time hidden there.
In the opposition to what both Hordern and DeWolf call the fundamentalist view of
the nature of revelation, one again discovers the uncritically accepted freedom-nature
scheme. First there is the free or autonomous man. He carries within him the categories
of logic or form in terms of which the raw stuff of experience gets its order. Man,
167 Ibid., p. 54.

therefore, has genuine knowledge of nature because the form of knowledge proceeds
ultimately from himself. But there is an infinite abyss of raw stuff. Knowing this, the free
man says he has no knowledge of God. Yet, lest man lose his own freedom by virtue of
his physical and even psychological involvement in nature, he projects a god into the
realm of the irrational. And then he speaks symbolically of this god of ours as the
creator, director and victorious redeemer of man and his world.
It should be noted that it is not so much fundamentalism as historic Reformation
thought that is in fact being rejected by both Hordern and DeWolf. Hordern and DeWolf
may appeal to individual passages in Calvin for support of their views. Hordern thinks
that his kerygmatic theology finds support in Calvins stress on the transcendent holiness
of God and his sovereign grace to men. DeWolf thinks that his rational theology finds
support in Calvins idea that all men have an ineradicable knowledge of God. But in order
for each of them to find support in Calvin, they first have to impose upon him the modern
freedom-nature framework of thought.
In terms of this modern-framework, there is no historical creation and no historical
fall of man. In terms of this framework man as sinner is not at enmity against God and
does not seek to suppress the revelation of God. Forcing the thought of the Reformers
into this modern framework, Hordern identifies Calvins notion of the transcendence and
sovereignty of God and Christ with the idea of the purely indeterminate as an aspect of
reality. Forcing the thought of the Reformers into this modern framework, DeWolf
identifies Calvins notion of Gods revelation to man through nature and himself with
sinful mans response to that revelation. He identifies the revelation of God with natural
theology.
As then Hordern and DeWolf join hands in opposing the historic Protestant and
notably Calvins notion of the relation of faith and reason, so they also join hands in
opposing the historic Protestant and notably Calvins view of the nature of revelation.
(3) How to Exclude the Fanatic
It remains now to show that Hordern and DeWolf use the same criterion when they
are called upon to distinguish between revelation that is true and revelation that is false.
Once more the difference between the two men appears on the surface to be sharp. Here
is Hordern who seeks to defend the sola scriptura principle. He wants a kerygmatic
theology that springs from a self-authenticating revelation. And here is DeWolf asserting
that the God of kerygmatic theology cannot speak to modern man except man have first
found him by natural theology.
We find soon enough, however, that the Christ of Hordern who is to identify himself
as true in terms of his self-assertion is heard to speak through no other means than such
as, in the nature of the case, universalize his words and relativize his claim. If Horderns
God is to speak to man, he must do so in the realm of history and psychology. And this
realm Hordern himself assumes to be what it is by the law-giving activity of the free
man. Accordingly Goethes words apply to the uniqueness and authority of the
revelation claims of the Christ of Hordern: When it is the individual that speaks then
alas, it is no longer the individual that speaks.
As for the position of DeWolf, if he is to avoid the idea of an idea that is no ones
idea, and the idea of revealing that is no ones revealing, he can only do so by joining
Hordern in his ascription of pure indeterminateness to God and the notion of the wholly
hidden character of his revelation to man in Christ.
In the whole matter of methodology, then, Hordern and DeWolf have to live off each
others wealth by taking in each others washings. Their common principle of unity is
that of abstract form, and their common principle of discontinuity is that of pure or raw
stuff.
(4) Final Conclusion on Methodology in Hordern and in DeWolf
With respect to the whole question of the method of Hordern and DeWolf in relation
to one another, we draw the following three conclusions:
(1) There is no significant choice between the method of comprehensive coherence of
DeWolf and the method of Hordern. Both seek to develop a faith-reason and reason-faith
structure that is composed of unity as abstract form and multiplicity as abstract stuff.
(2) It is because both men use this faith-reason and reason-faith structure that their
essentially common method is in harmony with the method of modern science and
modern philosophy. It is the common freedom-nature scheme that controls modern
science, modern philosophy, and modern kerygmatic-rational theology.
(3) The freedom-nature scheme of post-Kantian thought is not basically different
from the nature-grace scheme of Roman Catholicism. The avowed opposition of both
Hordern and DeWolf to the metaphysical approach of pre-Kantian thought must not
blind us to the fact that the metaphysical method of Aristotle, no less than the modern
freedom-nature scheme, is based upon the idea of pure form and pure matter. Moreover,
and this is basic to all, the form-matter scheme of Greek thought, the nature-grace scheme
of medieval Roman Catholic thought and the freedom-nature scheme of modern
Protestant thought are all based on the assumption of the autonomy of man.
Hence the common opposition of the efforts of the would-be autonomous man to the
efforts of the man who, with Calvin, interprets himself, his world, his sin and his
redemption from the beginning in terms of the Christ who is really present in and
identifiable in the world.
B. A Comparison of the Christian Story as Told by
DeWolf and the Christian Story as Told by Hordern
A mans theology is always the theology of his method even as his method is always
the method of his theology. The method of Aristotle was both the source and the
expression of his metaphysics. His God was an abstract form or principle because it was
obtained by a method of negation from the plurality of a world not in the first place
created and controlled by God. Accordingly the nature-grace scheme of the Roman
Catholic church is an artificial attempt to unite the god of Aristotle, a pure form standing
in relation of correlativity to a self-existing mass of non-rational matter, and the God of
Christianity who is the creator and redeemer of man. The natural-supernatural theology of
Roman Catholicism is the result of an attempt to fit the Christian framework of God-in-
Christ and his relation to the world into the form-matter scheme of Aristotle. The
transcendent God of the natural theology of Thomas Aquinas is attained by the method of
remotion and is therefore relegated to the realm of the indeterminate. When this God
reveals himself, he is compelled to reveal himself in the form-matter scheme of Aristotle.
It is thus that the Roman Catholic theology retains both the freedom of man and the
sovereignty of God as well as a rational relation between the two. The freedom of man
thus retained is the freedom of autonomy inherited from the method of Aristotle. It is the
principle of pure contingency that accounts for the freedom of man. When this freedom
expresses itself, it needs the idea of abstract rationality and this need is at the same time
mans need of God. In the same way the freedom or sovereignty of God is also the
freedom of pure contingency. And if the free sovereign God of Aquinas is to express
himself, then he too needs a principle of abstract rationality. And this is at the same time
Gods need of man. God and man therefore meet in the no-mans land of abstract moral
and intellectual law. Of course God is first and man depends on him. Even so,
communication is attained at the expense of Gods uniqueness. God is, in the last
analysis, unique in the same sense that man is unique. Both God and man are free in
terms of a purely nominalist idea of contingency. This is the principle of equivocism of
which Roman Catholic theology so often speaks. And both God and man communicate
with one another in terms of a purely realist or impersonal principle of rationality. This is
the univocism of which Roman Catholic theology also constantly speaks. It is the
combination of their pure equivocism and their pure univocism that constitutes the
scholastic notion of analogy.
Now the freedom-nature scheme of post-Kantian thought, for all its constant claim
that it is the expression of the Protestant as over against the Roman Catholic idea of the
relation of God to man, is in reality only a modification of it. Both the post-Kantian
freedom-nature and the medieval nature-grace scheme are descendants of the form-matter
scheme of Aristotle. In other words, Plato and especially Aristotle, gave the first historical
expression to what, in the nature of the case, is the only way open to the non-Christian
view of the relation to God. And this first expression may well be called the source and
typical expression of the non-Christian view of analogy between God and man wherever
found in non-biblical circles. The idea of analogy as based on this form-matter scheme is
that of a common participation in a common being and a common knowledge in terms of
common ideas and ideals by both God and man.
It is only when we see that the traditional Greek, the medieval and the post-Kantian
ideas of analogy are at bottom the same that we can also see that they have their common
hostility to the historic Protestant position and especially to the historic Protestant
position as expressed by Calvin.
Now the Christian story as told by DeWolf and as told by Hordern is told in terms
of the modern form of this non-Christian idea of analogy. This non-Christian idea of
analogy combines the idea of a God who is both wholly other and therefore wholly
irrational and at the same time wholly identical with man. Hordern accepts and DeWolf
rejects Kierkegaards notion of the incarnation as the absolute paradox. But this is again
nothing more than a family quarrel. The acceptance of this paradox by Hordern and its
rejection by DeWolf springs, in each case, from their common acceptance of the freedom-
nature scheme. In terms of this freedom-nature scheme, both men reject the Chalcedon
statement of the relation of the divine to the human nature of Christ. Following Barth,
Hordern wants a God who turns wholly into the opposite of himself by wholly revealing
himself. With Barth, Hordern wants a God who is identical with his revelation and whose
being is therefore wholly expressed in Christ and his work of saving all men.168 DeWolf
needs and finds exactly the same sort of Christ as does Hordern. Both have a God and a
Christ who is identical with the process of his work of redemption of all men. Both want
to start from the fact of the atonement. But both have first interpreted this fact of
atonement in terms of the freedom-nature framework of thought. Both therefore interpret
168 Cf. the writers Christianity and Barthianism, (Philadelphia: Pres. and Ref. Pub. Co.),
1962.
the historic Chalcedon creed as being on the one hand contradictory or irrational and on
the other hand as too explanatory and too rationalistic.
Put in another way, we can say that the principle of unity and the principle of
diversity as it finds expression in the Chalcedon creed and in the theology of the
Reformers who accepted this creed, is rejected by both men in terms of the principle of
unity and diversity as required by the notion of the freedom-nature scheme of modern
would-be autonomous man.
It is not really surprising then that DeWolf expresses agreement with Barth on the
doctrine of the trinity. But then why can he not express basic agreement with Barth or
with Hordern on all the teachings of Christianity? Are they not all constructed by Barth in
the same way that his doctrine of the trinity is constructed? Is it not always the same God
who in Christ and his work of redemption is wholly hidden and wholly revealed in his
one act of saving all men? Is not this God and this Christ identical with this fact of the
atonement? Is not this construction of things wholly in accord with the idea of the
primacy of the practical intellect as developed in the Critiques of Kant? Does not this
involve a blind faith on the part of would-be self-determining man in the victory of his
higher self over his lower self even though he must face the world that he knows to be
determined by impersonal law? Is not this the fact of the atonement that is identical
with the progress of the human race toward its self-chosen ideal?
Herewith we conclude our comparison of the method and the theology of DeWolf and
that of Hordern. It would appear that there is only one significant choice that really
confronts the layman, the student and the teacher of our day. It is the position of Hordern
and DeWolf on the one hand over against the position of Carnell on the other hand. The
question now facing us is whether Carnell has himself brought out the significant nature
and depth of the factors separating a theology based on the modern freedom-nature
scheme from a theology based on the work of the Reformers, which is ultimately based
on the Bible. For only in the Bible do we have the revelation of the Christ who has
unmistakably identified himself in history as a challenge to covenant-breaking men and
as their savior from sin.
3
Chapter 3:
The Case for Orthodox Theology
(Carnell)
In our first two chapters we have shown that the two books discussed, that of Hordern
and that of DeWolf, do not present the lay person or student with any significant choice.
Both books are constructed by means of a methodology not taken from the position of the
revelation of God in history but from modern speculative thought. Both books present the
story of Christianity in such adulterated form that it can scarcely be recognized to be that
story at all.
The question that now confronts us is whether for his part Carnell has signalized this
fact. Not, of course, that he could have spoken directly of the books of Hordern and
DeWolf, not having even seen the manuscripts of these books. The question is rather
whether Carnell is aware of the fact that the New Reformation theology represented by
Hordern is not basically different from the newer form of liberalism represented by
DeWolf. Has Carnell himself presented the historic Protestant position as the only clear-
cut alternative to a position such as is maintained by Hordern and DeWolf?
In answering these questions, we must first set forth Carnells general position. We
shall do this again with respect to the two questions of method and message. If his
method is adequate then his message will likely be adequate too, and if his message is
adequate then his method will also likely be adequate. Even so, his message may be
better than his method, or his method may be better than his message, for he may,
possibly, not be internally consistent with himself.
1. Carnells Method
As we aim to describe Carnells methodology, it is well that we at once compare it
with that of Hordern and especially with that of DeWolf. There is at least a greater verbal
similarity between the method of Carnell and that of DeWolf than there is between the
method of Carnell and that of Hordern.
A. General Analysis
(1) Systematic Consistency and Comprehensive Coherence
In his first major work Carnell speaks of his method as being that of systematic
consistency.1 Were reminded, as earlier noted, that DeWolf calls his own method that of
comprehensive coherence. What is the similarity between these two methods? What is the
difference between them?
There is one similarity that may at once appear to be very important. This is the fact
that in their analysis of their methods both DeWolf and Carnell depend frankly on Boston
Personalism in general and on Edgar S. Brightman in particular. 2
In the case of DeWolf this dependence is not merely formal. As our previous chapter
on DeWolf has shown, his method implies a basic agreement with the philosophy and
theology of Boston Personalism. DeWolf may agree at points with Albert C. Knudson
rather than with Brightman. So, for instance, DeWolf rejects Brightmans idea of the
Given in God. He does not like Brightmans idea of a finite God. He prefers instead
Knudsons notion of the absolute God. Again, DeWolf may lay greater emphasis on
Scripture than did Brightman or the Boston Personalists of the past. DeWolf tells us: I
differ from my theological teacher, Albert Knudson, in deriving theology more directly
from the testimony of the Bible, and in taking sin more seriously as a spiritual condition
and a humanly inescapable social involvement. Unlike Knudson, I avoid making my
theology dependent on a particular philosophical system.3 However these differences are
differences within a school. The much more important point is that DeWolf, together with
Edgar S. Brightman, Albert C. Knudson and Bordon P. Bowne, the leading Boston
1 Carnell, An Introduction to Apologetics, 1st ed., (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1948). p. 61.
We shall refer to this work in the sequel as Apologetics.
2 Ibid., p. 59 note.
3 DeWolf, Present Trends in Christian Theology, (New York: Association Press, 1960), p.
19.
Personalists, depends basically both for his method and for theology upon the Kantian
idea of the primacy of the practical reason.
One who holds to this primacy of the practical reason is always safe so far as keeping
contact with reason is concerned. One may, with the New Reformation theology, take
off greater distances into the realm of the irrational than has ever been done before. In
that case, it is a foregone conclusion that he will not come down with any revelation that
is in any wise contrary to or above reason. This is the case because as soon as this
revelation re-enters the atmosphere of reason it is that soon wholly known by reason. On
its re-entry revelation may and does, according to the New Reformation theology, at the
same time remain wholly unknown. But this does not take away the fact that on the basis
of the New Reformation theology, revelation is wholly known when known at all. This
should satisfy any rationalist.
Modern science, modern philosophy and modern theology have reached a final
accord with one another in terms of the Kantian idea of the primacy of the practical
reason. The Christian story will henceforth be told as being something wholly other
which, when it is told, will be wholly the same as that which the autonomous man has
already produced. It has already been shown that both Hordern and DeWolf tell the
Christian story in such a way that in its telling, there is nothing left to be told.
One hopes at this point to find that the common dependence of Carnell on the method
of Boston Personalism indicates merely formal similarity. Surely, we tend at once to say,
Carnell must have known that in using the method borrowed from Brightman he was
taking into his hands a dangerous tool to use in the defense, and particularly in a
philosophical defense, of Christianity such as his work on Apologetics announces itself as
being. Does not every method grow out of a system? Is not every system the fruit of its
method? Did not Carnell see from the beginning that Brightmans method grew right out
of the Kantian notion of the primacy of the teleological over the mechanical? Brightman
himself considered such to be the case. The whole movement of Boston Personalism
seeks merely to develop what it considers to be the centrally significant place of human
personality in terms of the Kantian notion of the primacy of the practical reason. In
Boston Personalism we have but a particular form of the modern freedom-nature scheme.
It is the free or autonomous man who is the projector of this scheme. This scheme is the
chosen instrument of much recent thought by which to tell the Christian story. Yet the
Christian story cannot be told in terms of this scheme. Did Carnell not realize this fact
when he committed himself in such unreserved fashion to the method of systematic
consistency? Is Carnell also committed to the type of philosophical teleology such as
DeWolf represents?
In a foreword to Carnells book on Apologetics, Carl F. H. Henry says that in the
current philosophical tumult this ably argued volume casts a plea for the Biblical view
of God and the word, as alone able to resolve the dilemmas of the modern mood.4 Then,
as to the question of method, Henry adds that Carnell does not renounce coherence but
rather champions it. Carnells coherence is one which embraces the evidence for
supernatural revelation, for miracles, for a divinely-provided atonement, for the
redemptive working of God in human history. In short, according to Henry, Carnell not
only allows for the Christian story but presents the Christian story in such a way as to
enable it to challenge those who seek to repress or deny it.
4 Apologetics, p. 5.
In contradistinction to Henry, DeWolf asserts that Carnells whole approach pretends
to be controlled by the method of systematic consistency or coherence and that this
enables him to tell the Christian story in an orthodox fashion only if he is inconsistent.
According to DeWolf, the method accepted by Carnell does not allow for the supernatural
or redemptive in the orthodox sense of the term.
Listening to both Henry and DeWolf on this point, we cannot help but agree with
Henry when he says that it is Carnells intent to tell the Christian story as the only
solution to the problems of life. When he says that the word of God is self-
authenticating,5 he does not refer with the New Reformation theology to some word
hidden behind the words of Scripture. Carnell believes in the direct revelation of God in
history and in the Bible as the direct revelation of God. No further evidence need be
given of this fact. Henry is also right when he says that Carnell seeks to tell the Christian
story as that which alone gives meaning to life.
On the other hand, we cannot help but agree with DeWolf when he contends that by
the method employed by Carnell he can only inconsistently tell the Christian story. The
question therefore is how faithful has Carnell been to his borrowed method. If he has
been faithful to it, has it not been at the expense of the telling of his story? Furthermore,
has it not then been at the expense of challenging the positions of such men as Hordern
and DeWolf by means of the story?
(2) Systematic Consistency
What then does Carnell mean by systematic consistency? His first major expression
of the method is found in the following words: Systematic consistency is the
combination of formal and material truth. It is a consistency because it is based upon a
rigid application of the law of contradiction, and it is a systematic consistency because
the data which are formed into this consistent system are taken from the totality of our
experience, within and without. Validity without real facts is, in Kants terms, empty
(save in mathematics and logic), and the facts of experience without the formal direction
of the law of contradiction are blind. If we reject the law of contradiction, we have
nothing to talk about because nothing means anything if the canon be not true; and if we
reject the facts of experience, we have nothing in history to talk about because there is no
reality beyond us as a point of reference to give content to our words. Facts without logic
have no direction and logic without facts has but formal validity and cannot terminate
upon the time-space universe. 6
In explication of this method, Carnell says that consistency is the formal aspect of the
method. Systematic consistency is true because it does not violate the law of
contradiction.7 But the formal aspect of the method is correlative to the material. As
systematic consistency is devoted to consistency, so it is also devoted to all the facts of
experience. The real is whatever we experience.8 Systematic consistency, then, is
fortified by a double approach. Consistency is its negative characteristic and being
systematic is its affirmative. 9
(3) The Method and the Message
5 Ibid., p. 66.
6 Ibid., pp. 5960.
7 Ibid., p. 60.
8 Ibid., p. 61.
9 Ibid., p. 60.
It is well that we take note immediately of the relation of the method of systematic
consistency to the message of Christianity. By our employment of the method of
systematic consistency, says Carnell, we obtain true knowledge of God. For perfect
systematic consistency is a perfect correspondence with the mind of God. Gods mind is
that one than which no greater may be conceived.10 Then, as to Christ and the Bible, the
following may be said: Christ is the source of all rationality.11 And the Bible, since it
contains a system of meaning which is systematically consistent, is a reflection of the
mind of Christ.12 Finally, as to mans reception of the truth, it may be said that the
ability to think Gods thoughts after Him is what provides the univocal point of meeting
between God and man. 13
Summing up the relation of the method of systematic consistency to the Christian
story, Carnell says: The Christian, by systematic consistency, will be privileged to speak
not only of the other side of the moon and of an absolute good, but also of creation, the
flood, angels, heaven, and hell. 14
(4) The Significance of Systematic Consistency for Apologetics
Carnell points out the significance of his method for apologetics in the following
fashion: The surest proof one can have that his faith in Gods word is valid is the
internal witness of the Spirit of God in his heart.15 But when the believer is called upon
to give an account for the hope that is in him, he is assured that there is yet a fuller
activity of the Spirit to which he may appeal to buttress the validity of the inward
witness. The Spirit witnesses to our hearts not only immediately, as traced above, but also
mediately through the hearts apprehension of truth on every level of life. 16
The idea of common grace is, also brought into the picture in this connection. By the
inward testimony of the Spirit, Carnell argues, we see Gods truth in the Bible. Then
there is the mediate testimony, by which the Spirit opens up our hearts to see the truth
which God has revealed through nature in general revelation. The former requires special
grace and the latter common grace. All men by nature are qualified to see certain
thresholds of truth as they are revealed by God in the facts of nature, but it takes a special
gift from God to have faith in the Bible as truth. 17
It appears that Carnells deepest conviction is that only by using his method the
Christian story can be told. It is, of course, the fully Christian story that he wants to tell.
The conservative ardently defends a system of authority.18 At the same time the
Christian story can really be told only if we use the method of systematic consistency. For
the method of systematic consistency enables the believer to do justice to all the laws of
logic. Any theology which rejects Aristotles fourth book of Metaphysics is big with the
10 Ibid., p. 62.
11 Ibid., p. 62.
12 Idem.
13 Idem.
14 Ibid., p. 64.
15 Ibid., p. 68.
16 Ibid., pp. 6869.
17 Ibid., pp. 6970.
18 Ibid., p. 71.
elements of its own destruction.19 In his work on A Philosophy of the Christian
Religion,20 Carnell deals with the question of logic again. He quotes both Plato and
Aristotle on the subject.21 He speaks of the law of contradiction as an absolute, which
cannot be proved but must be presupposed. All significant predication presupposes it.22
This is what he means by the primacy of reason as a test for validity.23 He who makes a
protest against this primacy must draw its significance from the very canons of
rationality being questioned.24 As Christian believers we want people to know the
gospel. But to know something is to perceive it with the understanding, i.e., to have an
intellectual awareness of coherence in the light of the law of contradiction.25 When Paul
spoke of foolishness of the gospel, he did not mean that Christ cannot be rationally
categorized.26 Why should faith be exempted from the general rule that all belief is
subjected to the law of contradiction in the light of history. 27
Moreover, as Christianity can satisfy the demands of logic, so it can also satisfy the
demands of fact. Part of reality must be volitional, for if all of nature is deductively
necessary, time has no meaning.28 Perfect rational connections subsist only in a
deductive system.29 Where there is freedom, non-necessity is found.30 In short, we
must make room for the nonrational aspects in life. We are bombarded with facts all
of the time: lost shoes, sour orange juice, dead batteries, soiled clothing, broken glass,
smell of gas, and the like. Each of these fact-situations must be explained; our
explanation is an hypothesis.31 All hypotheses are but patterns of meaning which are
thought out by the mind of the investigator to explain the configuration of data which it
faces.32 Hypotheses that work well are called theories and theories that stick are called
laws. 33 Now Christianity is a theory that sticks. It fulfills what it sets out to
establish. It gives a basis of personal hope in immortality, a rational view of the
universe and a solution to the problem of truth.34 All its rivals lead to scepticism. 35
(5) Has Carnells Method Changed?
We may ask at this point whether Carnells method has changed in the course of time.
There has clearly been no change in Carnells desire to show that orthodox theology can
communicate its message to the modern man. But in order to communicate the gospel
19 Ibid., p. 78.
20 Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952.
21 Ibid., pp. 184186.
22 Ibid., p. 186.
23 Ibid., p. 187.
24 Idem.
26 Ibid., p. 85.
27 Ibid., p. 119.
28 Philosophy, etc., p. 204.
29 Ibid., p. 205.
30 Ibid., p. 206.
32 Ibid., p. 93.
33 Idem.
34 Ibid., p. 97.
35 Idem.
better in the midst of a rapidly changing culture, Carnell has introduced change in his
method. He speaks of this fact in his recent work on The Kingdom of Love and the Pride
of Life.36 He says that there is no official or normative approach to apologetics. In
my own books on apologetics I have consistently tried to build on some useful point of
contact between the gospel and culture. In An Introduction to Christian Apologetics the
appeal was to the law of contradiction; in A Philosophy of the Christian Religion it was to
values; and in Christian Commitment it was to the judicial sentiment. In this book I am
appealing to the law of love. 37
Underneath all these changes there has been, however, the desire to do the sort of
things that St. Augustine did. What did Augustine do in his famous work on The City Of
God? First, he found a useful point of contact between the gospel and culture. He then
went on to argue that if the Romans were consistent in their position, they would
reverence the name of Christ, not blaspheme it; for Christ is the absolute embodiment of
whatever relative virtues were celebrated in the national heroes of Rome. I think that
Augustine went at things in the right way. 38
Herein, according to Carnell himself, lies the heart of the matter. If good men are only
consistent in the use of the method involved in their own position, then they will end up
with reverencing Christ.
In his work on Apologetics, the rational man is urged to apply the law of
contradiction to the data of biblical revelation and they will be sure to accept them for
what they claim to be. Bring on your revelations! Let them make peace with the law of
contradiction and the facts of history, and they will deserve a rational mans assent.39 In
Philosophy the free self40 has taken the place of the rational man in Apologetics.
Freedom compounded with morality gives man his essence.41 Accordingly, love is the
pre-condition of everything.42 Nature is now an eternal, silent blob of necessity.43 But
a free spirit cannot be forced into a system of necessity.44 If the Dutch Jew, Spinoza,
seeks to swallow up our individuality, we rebel.45 We appeal to the requirements of the
heart.46 What persuasion can the Spinozistic arguments enjoy when the power of
freedom in man is the clearest datum in the whole world?47 How much better than the
Dutch Jew is the great Dane, Kierkegaard. No writer in modern times has more
impatiently recoiled from a rationally necessary world view that the Copenhagen gadfly,
Sren Kierkegaard.48 The triangle is an it; man is a person. 49
36 Carnell, The Kingdom of Love and the Pride of Life, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1960.
37 Ibid., p. 6.
38 Idem.
39 Apologetics, etc., p. 178.
40 Philosophy, etc., p. 76.
41 Ibid., p. 164.
42 Ibid., p. 211.
43 Ibid., p. 204.
44 Ibid., p. 205.
45 Ibid., p. 192.
46 Ibid., p. 200.
47 Ibid., p. 201.
48 Ibid., p. 202.
49 Ibid., p. 214.
In this work on Philosophy the rational ideal is said to be simply another person-
thing affair. 50
It is, to be sure, of higher value than the ideals of pleasure or of bread alone. Even
so, even the rational ideal, together with pleasure and bread alone, is still an
immediacy. And the ineradicable flaw in all forms of immediacy is their failure to
compensate by depositing accumulations of satisfaction which spirit may repose in when
strength is wanting. The it is impotent to take any initiative in supporting the longings of
the heart.51 It is thus that freedom must assess even the higher immediacy of the
rational ideal.52 In the real task of living we do not follow the philosophic ideal.53 The
philosophic ideal cannot stand the test of time. It suffers from progressive self-
refutation. When pursued long enough, it fails. And is this not proof it was not really
mans highest ideal in the first place. 54
All this does not mean that Carnell has now altogether forgotten about the rational
man. The fourth book of Aristotles metaphysics remains in force. We cannot escape
using logic even in our effort to establish the primacy of the heart. And using logic to
disprove logic is as foolish as catching rapid breaths while preaching that it is not
necessary to breathe. 55
There is, however, a change of emphasis in Philosophy as compared to Apologetics.
In Philosophy Carnell stresses the idea that The presence of contradiction is the surest
negative test for truth.56 Bring on your values and the free man, using the principle of
love, will now assess them. But, in assessing values, the free man will still use the
principle of contradiction. Only, he will use this standard with emphasis on its purely
negative function. The free man may reach out far beyond the field of the I-it relations for
the primacy of the fellowship of love. He will not allow the law of contradiction to assert
its relentless claims in that realm. But it is still the duty of this law to see that nothing is
believed that is against its requirement. The heart knows a depth of insight which, while
it may never be separated from rational consistency, is yet not univocally identified with
such consistency.57 In short, what we need is full perspective coherence,58 or whole
coherence.59 Science is our servant, not our master. Whenever a strict application of the
scientific method forces one to deny in theory what experience avers to be true, freedom
must cut cables with the method.60 It is the things which the heart affirms that are
primary.61 Even so, the primacy of fellowship as a value does not in the least cancel out
50 Ibid., p. 216.
51 Idem.
52 Ibid., p. 217.
53 Ibid., p. 219.
54 Ibid., p. 221.
55 Ibid., p. 184.
56 Ibid., p. 185.
57 Ibid., p. 39.
58 Idem.
59 Ibid., p. 41.
60 Ibid., p. 147.
61 Idem.
the primacy of reason as a test of truth.62 A heart response is a concerned response
a deliberate interest to integrate the entire person with reality. 63
We come back now to what Carnell said about the propriety of Augustines method.
Augustine was right in his method, says Carnell, because he pointed out that if good men
would only apply their method consistently they would end by submitting themselves to
Christ. Following that method, Carnell urges the free man to follow out the requirements
of his heart, and he will find that Christ gives him what he wants. One should commit
himself wholeheartedly to that which gets him where he wants to go.64 The free spirit
wants total integration of his person with the total universe over against him.65 He
cannot find such total integration in the world of science alone. Man simply must
advance from the mechanical to the teleological. 66
When we have this necessity, the hungry man will return to the Biblical sources and
find food and drink for himself. 67
(6) The Judicious Sentiment
The results so far obtained are that the free man is the good man and that the good
man is still the rational man, but the rational man who gladly submits himself to the
primacy of the teleological over the necessitarian requirements of pure logic.
It is this free man who is the source of the judicious sentiment of Christian
Commitment.68 In this book Carnell speaks of The Third Method of Knowing. He now
distinguishes between the scientific and philosophical method. If the scientific method
clarifies our physical environment, while philosophical method clarifies our rational
environment, what method clarifies our moral and spiritual environment.69 The answer is
that the method of moral self-acceptance does.
What needs to be noted at once is that the distinction between the scientific and the
philosophical method may not be an important one. In Philosophy the moral man was
ready to cut cables with the scientific method if the latter should seek to interfere with
the primacy of fellowship in terms of a teleological interpretation of reality. Again, the
philosophical ideal of necessitarian relationship was also subjected to the notion of
teleology. And the law of contradiction was given a merely negative task. We conclude
then that third method, the method of moral self-acceptance, is not basically different
from the method of the free-rational man earlier encountered. It is the free man who finds
himself in relation to certain realities by existence itself.70 And basic to all these realities
is the fact of the moral absolute. The relativists may fume and boast, but they cannot
get rid of these moral absolutes any more than they can get rid of the law of
contradiction. He who would deny either the moral or the rational absolute has to do so
by standing upon them. 71
62 Ibid., p. 215.
63 Ibid., p. 132.
64 Ibid., p. 147.
65 Ibid., p. 147.
66 Idem.
67 Ibid., p. 45.
68 Carnell, Christian Commitment, New York: The Macmillan Company, 1957.
69 Ibid., p. 10.
70 Ibid., p. 41.
71 Ibid., p. 65.
We see then that a balanced world-view is made up of three basic ingredients: the
facts of experience, the requirements of logical consistency, and the witness of the moral
sense. 72
(7) The Axiom of a Decent Society
It is against this background that we can understand what Carnell means when in The
Case for Orthodox Theology he speaks of the axiom of a decent society.73 This decent
society is composed of those who, as good men, as rational men, seek a fellowship of the
spirit by means of the principle of love.
And now Carnell following, as he thinks, in the footsteps of Augustine, is asking this
decent society to follow out the principles on which they are already working, in order
that they may themselves realize that Jesus Christ satisfies the deepest longings of their
hearts. Says Carnell: When orthodoxy is called on to verify its claims, it appeals to the
axiom that undergirds a decent society: namely, that in all matters where a good man is
competent to judge, his word should be accepted unless sufficient reasons are found for
rejecting it. Suppose we are driving through a strange city and we want a certain address.
We look for a person who seems competent and trustworthy. When this person gives us
directions, we offend rectitude if we fail to act on his word. The word of a good man is
assumed to be true until it is proved not true.74 And further: It is on precisely these
criteria that orthodoxy justifies the claims of Jesus Christ. Jesus is a good man because he
verified everything that a decent society means by goodness. Not doctrinal teaching
alone, not superior intellect, but a consistent exhibition of self-giving lovethis is what
holds us. Love is the substance of rectitude, and Jesus loved God with all his heart and
his neighbor as himself.75 Jesus Christ is the embodiment of whatever relative goodness
we acknowledge in one another. And This conclusion can be voided only by an
egregious disregard of elementary logic and morals. Either it must be proved that the
axiom of a decent society is not true, or it must be proved that Jesus Christ is not a good
man. The first proof, if successful, would do more than invalidate this or that decent
society; it would invalidate the very possibility of a decent society. And the second proof
can only succeed by repudiating the most firmly established evidences: For this was not
done in a corner. (Acts 26:26) Nineteen centuries of critical scholarship support the
claim that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life. If we reject the goodness of Christ, despite this
weight of scholarship, we court incredulity. In such a case we invalidate the possibility of
truth, let alone a decent society. 76
Carnell exemplifies the meaning of his appeal to a decent society by a reference to
Cinderella. When we use the term good we mean exactly what children mean when
they say that Cinderella is good.77 He carries out this appeal to childhood in his latest
book, the one on The Kingdom of Love and the Pride of Life. There was one man who did
not scoff at the inductive powers of a child.78 Happy children complete their lives
72 Ibid., p. 71.
73 The Case for Orthodox Theology, p. 82.
74 Ibid., p. 82.
75 Idem.
76 Idem.
77 Idem.
78 The Kingdom of Love, etc., p. 17.
through love.79 And when they grow up they consciously take up residence in the
kingdom of love. 80
So the appeal is now to the heart. Our heart tells us how to act when we visit a sick
child.81 Our heart tells us how to act when we attend a funeral. 82
Of course there are reasons why adults do not always follow the promptings of the
heart. While children are free to romp in the kingdom of love, adults must assemble
automobiles in a plant that may close from lack of supplies or a drop in business. The
resulting anxiety may be so great that the convictions of the heart, however active, do not
come to the attention of consciousness.83 But Jesus says that any normal person can
prepare for the kingdom of heaven by becoming like a child. 84
Of course, a decent society finds it hard to sustain itself. We lose sight of the
kingdom of love, and thus of the kingdom of heaven, in our very zeal to interpret and
control nature.85 But love has access to the creative possibilities in a person and these
are richer and more intimate than either universal man or natural law.86 And
psychotherapy has confronted modern man with new proof that love is the law of life.87
Moreover, love involves hope.88 A child does not lose hope unless he loses love.89 A
loving child lives and moves and has his being in God. This being true, he can no more
question the ground of hope than he would the beauty of a rose or the joy of a mothers
kiss.90 Such a child is not anxious about the problem of evil.91 He believes implicitly
in the sovereignty of God, for only God is able to deliver good people from the jaws of
death.92 We must become like unto such happy children.
When we become like happy children, then the problem of immortality is also
solved. Qua body man is an animal, while qua spirit he is a celestial being. As a creature
of time and space, man is limited by death; while as a creature of spirit, man is able to
live eternally. Meditation upon these conflicting realities is a basic cause of soul
sorrow.93 So wrote Carnell in 1948. The first ingredient which a cure for this soul-
sorrow must have is the hope for personal immortality.94 But immortality cannot be
secured until man has made peace with his universe.95 Is the universe perhaps of such a
nature that it cannot allow for immortality? This cannot be. The rational man will settle
79 Ibid., p. 19.
80 Ibid., p. 20.
81 Idem.
82 Ibid., p. 21.
83 Ibid., p. 22.
84 Idem.
85 Ibid., p. 28.
86 Ibid., p. 47.
87 Ibid., p. 59.
88 Ibid., p. 73.
89 Idem.
90 Idem.
91 Ibid., p. 74.
92 Idem.
94 Ibid. p. 25.
95 Ibid., p. 26.
for nothing less than a rational view of life. Without a rational view of the universe,
hope cannot be secured.96 And Christianity as the best hypothesis for the interpretation
of reality, including the idea of grace, is an aspect of the rational universe. The argument
from grace takes its place in a system of thought which is horizontally self-consistent and
which vertically fits the facts of life.97 Thus the Christian may place his hope for
immortality in as secure a position in the framework of his world-view as any other
judgment which terminates upon reality.98 This was Carnells argument in 1948. In 1960
his argument has shifted but is not radically changed. His argument for immortality is
now part of his argument for the primacy of the teleological over the mechanical. And
this primacy of the teleological is based upon the datum of love as the law of life. Love
includes hope, and hopes fulfilment cannot be denied. The happy child as well as Kant
may tell us this. The kingdom of love forms the outer court of the kingdom of heaven.99
The good man has nothing to fear, not even death.
Jesus brought human nature to perfection by loving God with all his heart, and his
neighbor as himself. 100
Finally appeal may be made to God. Ignoring the clamant protests of zealots, we
must maintain that man shares some point of identity with God. This is the requirement
alike of the intellectual, the aesthetic and the moral life.101 Therefore, we must underscore
the fact that the moral spiritual environment on the finite level is precisely the same stuff
as the moral and spiritual environment on the divine level; and that it is not improper to
say that God is perfectly held by standards that hold an upright man imperfectly.102
When, therefore, we give a reason for our hope we assert, on Scriptural authority, that
we live and move and are in God.103 And mans meaningful moral judgment implies
the administrator of justice.
B. Evaluation of Carnells Method
We turn now, more definitely, to an evaluation of the method of Carnell.
(1) Carnells Free Man is Like that of DeWolf and that of Kant
We found that Carnell as well as DeWolf depends largely on the method of Edgar S.
Brightman. This is especially true when he first states his method in Apologetics. It is less
obviously true in later works.
The main point of interest for Brightman and other Boston Personalists is to maintain
and defend the idea of the imperviousness of human personality. Boston Personalists
argue against all forms of determinism. There is the determinism of many scientific
views. There is the philosophical determinism of absolute idealist philosophy. There is
the theological determinism of Calvin and others. Against all and sundry forms of
determinism it must be maintained that mans freedom is an ultimate datum of
experience.104 It is therefore from the idea of ultimate free human personality that,
according to Boston Personalism, the interpretative enterprise must take its start. Logic
96 Ibid., p. 27.
97 Ibid., p. 346.
98 Idem.
99 Kingdom of Love, p. 96.
100 Ibid., p. 62.
101 Commitment, p. 137.
102 Ibid., p. 138.
103 Ibid., p. 139.
and fact cannot disprove the ultimacy of human freedom; both presuppose it. Both must
be interpreted in terms of it.
On this basic point of the ultimacy of human freedom, Boston Personalism aims to be
true to the basic insight of Kant. And it claims to be more true to this basic insight than
other post-Kantian philosophies are. Such absolute idealists as Fichte, Schelling and
Hegel were, Boston Personalists affirm, too much under the influence of the Spinozistic
dictum that the order and connection of things are identical with the order and connection
of ideas. To hold any such thing would be to crush the imperviousness of the individual
as Andrew Seth Pringle Pattison spoke of it. Pattison was right. We must, to be sure, meet
the requirements of logic. But this does not mean that logic must legislate positively in
the realm of fact. The requirements of logic are formal. It needs the idea of the non-
rational as correlative to itself. Precepts without concepts are blind, and concepts without
precepts are empty.
Now the method of Carnell, no less than that of DeWolf, seeks to be true to the basic
notion of the free-man and its subsidiaries, the idea of logic as pure form and of fact as
nonrational material. The differences of detail between Carnells and DeWolfs method
dwindle into insignificance in the light of this basic identity.
(2) Carnell and DeWolf Hold with Kant to the Primacy of the
Teleological
It is this basic identity between the two methods that accounts for the idea of the
primacy of the teleological over the mechanical in Carnell as well as in DeWolf. This
primacy is defended in both cases in a way strikingly similar to that of Kant. Kant limits
science to make room for faith. He does this in terms of his assumption of the ultimacy of
free human personality. The only way in which this basic freedom is to be maintained is
to conceive of it as absolutely original and to make all of mans environment to derive its
meaning from it.
Accordingly, the laws of logic are by Kant said to rest in the mind of this free man.
They are his servants, not his masters. Similarly the facts that confront man have no
ultimate order in them. The free man provides the order. The stuff of experience is wholly
devoid of order till the free man reduces them wholly to order. Thus the free man is true
to the demands of both logic and fact because both are true to him.
Now the place assigned to the free man both in the method of Carnell and in that of
DeWolf is to all intents and purposes the same as the place assigned to the free man in the
thought of Kant. Accordingly the place assigned to the demands of logic as formal and
negative and to facts as non-rational by both Carnell and DeWolf are, to all intents and
purposes, the same as that of Kant.
Both want, by all means, to meet the demands of logic. Carnell has stressed this point
over and over again. The free man is the rational man. He stands above every
revelation that comes and judges it by the law of contradiction. Let the zealots beware!
Let them introduce no God who is free and above man, and as such the source of order!
In this both are true to Kant.
Both Carnell and DeWolf want also, by all means, to meet the requirements of fact.
The free man always looks for evidence. He is quite ready to believe, but only if adequate
factual evidence is presented to him. Let the zealots beware again! Let them introduce no
104 Cf. the writers Christianity and Idealism (Philadelphia: Pres. and Ref. Pub. Co.,
1955).
God who is free, so free that every fact man meets is ultimately what it is because of the
place it occupies in the development of his purpose. Here too Carnell and DeWolf are
true to Kant.
Both Carnell and DeWolf think of the free man as basically the good man, the moral
man. It is he that ultimately determines the difference between good and evil. And it is
the good man who, as ultimate, determines the range of reason and the nature of fact. On
this point too Carnell and DeWolf agree with Kant. Let then the zealots beware again! Let
them introduce no God who is so free as to insist that he, not man, is the ultimate
distinguisher between good and evil.
On logic and on fact and back of them on morality, the method of both Carnell and
DeWolf is basically the same as that of Kant.
And it is in terms of this basically Kantian method that both men, again with Kant,
postulate the primacy of the teleological over the mechanical. Both men, with Kant,
subordinate the realm of science to the realm of personal confrontation. Neither of them
has shown any better reason, either in terms of logic or of fact, than did Kant, for their
assertion of this primacy of purpose over mechanism in the world. In fact both men, as
well as Kant, set the world of science, as being the world of the impersonal dualistically,
over against the world of purpose. The method of both men, as well as the method of
Kant, requires that human logic can and does legislate for the realm of science but is in
no wise related to the realm of faith. For both, as well as for Kant, faith and knowledge
stand in utter dualism over against one another. For this very reason it is by sheer
postulation or blind faith that the world of purpose is said to be above the world of
science.
The method of Kant requires that the good man has nothing to fear. So he postulates
his immortality, as a reward for his goodness. And he appoints God as administrator of
justice. God must reward the good men, i.e., those who have called themselves good. And
at bottom all men are good.
It is to this postulated primacy of the teleological as involved in the idea of the
autonomous man that Carnell as well as DeWolf appeals. It is this autonomous rational
man that is urged to sit as judge above every form of revelation. It is this autonomous
good man united to his fellows and together constituting a decent society that must
judge of the ethics involved in revelation.
This good man with his fellows constitutes the kingdom of love. And love has
nothing to fear. God, as administrator of justice, will certainly reward the good.
2. Carnells Message
Of course, Carnells basic commitment is to a quite different sort of message than that
for which his method allows. He affirms his basic agreement with the writers of the
Reformation and in particular with the writers of the Reformed tradition. That this is no
mere formal statement appears in all his publications, and need not be pointed out in
detail. Even so his message is thwarted by his method.
A. Carnells Method Requires the Destruction of
Christianity
Both Hordern and DeWolf are out and out anti-metaphysical in the post-Kantian
sense of the term. They deny the possibility of any knowledge of God if by God is meant
any such thing as the Reformers meant by God. Such a God would be to them a God in
himself and as such a thing in itself, that is, an unknown entity, wholly out of touch with
the mind of man.
Both Hordern and DeWolf therefore reduced the idea of an ontological trinity as self-
sufficient to the notion of a revelational trinity. On this idea of a revelational trinity, God
is identical with his revelation. And by this means they obtain their centrality for Christ.
Christ is he in whom God is wholly revealed.
Both Hordern and DeWolf add that when God is thus wholly revealed, he is still
hidden in his revelation. Hordern and DeWolf differ to some extent as to the degree of the
hiddenness of God in Christ. But they agree in denying that God can reveal himself and
has revealed himself through Christ in history in a directly identifiable fashion.
Both Hordern and DeWolf therefore deny, in effect, that the message of salvation
takes place directly in ordinary history. For them there is no historical Adam through
whose sin and in whose sin all men fell. For them there is no transition from wrath to
grace in history through the once-for-all finished work of reconciliation in Christ. Both
Hordern and DeWolf believe that what the Bible says about God, about Christ and the
work of his redemption is, in effect, a projected story which the good moral man uses in
order to encourage himself in his way toward self-improvement.
In all this Hordern and DeWolf are true to their method. The method of the one does
not differ basically from the method of the other, because both are committed to man as
autonomous. Both use the laws of logic in order by them to exclude the claims of the God
and the Christ of Scripture. Both have long since made peace with the law of
contradiction. The fourth book of Aristotles Metaphysics is for them more authoritative
than is the Bible. For this reason they have argued that God cannot exist in trinitarian
fashion. The law of contradiction would be violated if we held that God consists of three
persons to whom one can pray as to one God. Accordingly, the three persons of the trinity
as Luther and Calvin believed in them, are reduced to three modes of revelation of the
one God by both Hordern and DeWolf. Both agree with Barth on this point.
With Barth, and following again the requirements of Aristotle and/or Kant, the two
natures of Christ must not, according to Hordern and DeWolf, be said to be related to one
another in the way that the Chalcedon creed says that they are related. As God is wholly
identical with his revelation, so the divine nature of Christ must turn wholly into the
opposite of itself and become wholly human. And as the human nature is ideally the
divine nature, so the human nature of Christ must be thought of as inherently participant
in the nature of God. Thus the work of atonement is already accomplished for all men
from all eternity. Reconciliation is inherent for all men because its principle is already
operative in all men simply because they are men.
Hordern and DeWolf differ in the details connected with these teachings. But they
agree on essentials. They agree on essentials because they are in basic agreement on the
method. And this method is that of the modern freedom-nature scheme as it is founded
upon Kants notion of the autonomous rational and moral man. All that their method can
allow for is the vague idea of the primacy of the teleological. When the teachings of
Christianity are forced into the framework of this method, then we get the reductionist
ideas of God, of Christ and his redemption for men, as mentioned.
Hordern was afraid that the older liberalism lost its message in its great desire to tell it
to the cultural consciousness of the day. DeWolf was afraid that the New Reformation
theology was unable to tell its message because it makes no provision for its contact with
the natural or normal man. We have seen in the previous chapter that the messages of
these men do not really differ from one another because their methods do not really
differ. Both have a message that is not essentially different from that of the older
liberalism against which Machen wrote his book. Neither really has anything to tell the
natural man that the natural man has not already told himself.
Now we may add that, Hordern and DeWolf need not fear the message of Carnell the
conservative, if only they can get him to reduce his message to the requirements of his
method. Carnells method, being essentially patterned after that of Boston Personalism,
and constructed after the requirements of the primacy of the practical reason of Kant,
would require the rejection of God and Christ as really sovereign over man. Carnells
method sets up man as sovereign over God. The reductions effected by the New
Reformation theology, by the newer and the older liberalism, are all the proper logical
results of the method which Carnell advocates.
DeWolf found it strange that Carnell, who rests his whole case on the philosophical
criterion of coherence, should reject the method of higher criticism.105 He might have
gone further. He might quite rightly have found it strange that Carnell, holding to the
method of systematic consistency, should hold to any historic Christian teaching at all.
But then Carl Henry was no doubt right when he said that Carnell is in reality seeking
to convey the historic Christian message. Carnell openly expresses his belief in the direct
revelation of God in history, but his method can allow for no such thing. His method
requires that God be wholly hidden till the autonomous man permits him to speak
through the categories of Kants Critique of Pure Reason or in accord with Aristotles
Metaphysics. On the other hand, Carnells method also requires God to speak and to
speak his whole mind, holding nothing for himself. Gods being must be identical with
his revelation. How else could the good man know that God did not retain some
prerogative for himself? But in spite of this fact, that his method requires the rejection of
the whole body of his Christian beliefs, Carnell holds on to them.
(1) Carnell Uses Common Grace to Introduce a New Natural
Theology
To be sure, at points Carnells method has to some extent overpowered him. He has
sometimes compromised his own theology.
Together with many Reformed theologians, Carnell believes in common grace. And
together with many Reformed theologians, he relies heavily on it in order to find a point
of contact for the Christian message with the unbeliever. He militates against the
apologetical fundamentalists who think that non-Christians know no truth at all. Nothing
can be learned from general wisdom, says the fundamentalist, for the natural man is
wrong in starting point, method, and conclusion. When the natural man says, This is a
rose, he means This is a not-made-by-the-triune-God rose. Everything he says is
blasphemy. 106
But what sort of starting point and what sort of method is it that Carnell finds by
means of his doctrine of common grace? It is the starting point of the autonomous man,
and the method required by the idea of the autonomous man. In other words, Carnell, to
all intents and purposes, identifies common grace with natural theology.
105 The Case for Theology in Liberal Perspective, p. 52.

106 The Case for Orthodox Theology, p. 119.
To be sure, Carnell does not believe in the natural theology of Romanism. Often
enough he militates against Romanism. But the argument against Romanism and for
Protestantism is carried on by means of his essentially Kantian method. The
Reformation stemmed from a sanctified application of systematic consistency to the
teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.107 Carnell thinks that he can defend the
Reformation doctrine of salvation by grace alone against the Romanist notion of salvation
by grace plus works by means of his method. By this method he thinks he can plot a
rational universe. And in a rational universe these two propositions [salvation by
grace and salvation by grace plus works] cannot simultaneously be true. 108
It is not the Bible as the really self-authenticating word of Christ with which Carnell
refutes Romanism. To be sure, Carnell appeals to external authority of the church but
only in so far as the church teaches what is compatible with the eternal law of God.
And this law is found in Holy Writ.109 But then, as earlier noted, Carnell insists that
with his belief in scriptural authority he claims no exemption from the rule that all
authority must be tested by the rational man by means of the method this man uses in
all his research, namely, systematic consistency. The conservative ardently defends a
system of authority,110 but it must be such an authority as men in general employ for all
their research. If society is run by a system of authority, shall we expect God to operate
differently in matters of religion?111 And it is common grace which enables men to use
the method of systematic consistency aright.112 The rational man, as the recipient of
common grace, finds the Protestant rather than the Romanist doctrine of grace consistent
with its method and therefore with the idea of a rational universe. One self-consistent,
historically accurate, plan of salvation runs through the pages of the Bible from Genesis
to Revelation. In this entire system of salvation there is nothing repulsive to the reason
of man; there is nothing impossible, immoral, absurd, nothing inconsistent with the
corpus of well-attested truth.113 The Christian hypothesis is the best that the rational
man can find for to elect any other position would be to fly in the face of the facts, a
gesture more befitting an irrational ornithoid than a rational man in quest of a rational
explanation of the universe. 114
Here then we have Carnells notion of the rational man doing the same thing that
the natural reason does in Romanist theology. To be sure, Carnell rejects the approach
of Thomas Aquinas. But he rejects it only because it is too empiricist. He himself prefers
the more a priori notion as it derives from Plato. Plato hit upon the right synoptic
starting point.115 This is to be explained by the fact that being made in the image of
God, he was given illumination to see more of the problem of epistemology than were
others. The truth which Plato found was made possible because Christ was antecedently

108 Idem.
109 Idem.
110 Ibid., p. 71.
111 Idem.
112 Ibid., p. 70.
113 Ibid., p. 179.
114 Ibid., p. 180.
115 Ibid., p. 186.
true.116 When Plato said that one must take the best and most irrefragible of human
theories, and let this be the raft upon which he sails through life he nicely stated the
alternatives any philosopher must face. 117
Of course, as already observed, Carnell does not want the Platonic type of a priori
turned into rationalism. The Dutch Jew, Spinoza, always stands before him as a warning
signal. The rational man wants formal consistency. The Platonic a priori provides for
that. But this same man also wants material truth. He wants facts. And these facts include
the supernatural and the miraculous content of the Scriptures. They include all the
facts of the universe. And herewith we are back to Aristotle. Aristotle argues against the
definition mongers. Not all truth is demonstrable. Facts cannot be deduced from the
requirements of logic as such. But Aristotle also argues against those who are no better
than a plant. Factuality as such, fact without relation to logic, is meaningless. If only
men will seek to say something significant, then they must realize that both form and
matter are indispensable to predication. Then they will see that form and matter need one
another. They are as interdependent in meaning as are husband and wife.
It appears then that though Carnell frequently appeals to Platos a priori in his
argument against Rome, he himself holds a combination of form and matter similar to
that of Rome, in so far as Rome gets its method of natural theology from Aristotle.
Carnell, as well as the Roman Catholic, attributes to the natural man the ability to
construct a rational universe. Carnell, as well as the Roman Catholic, attributes to the
natural man the intellectual ability and the ethical readiness to judge so fairly and
properly of the claims of redemptive revelation as to set these up as above itself. When
Christ comes with his claim of authority over man, the natural man is able, in terms of his
own principles, to capitulate to this claim. The natural man realizes that Christs claim
upon him is an appeal to be true to himself. Christ was already operative in Plato. We
may say that wherever Plato spoke the truth, he was Christian.118 It is quite natural then
that the rational man of Carnell finds nothing objectionable in the facts presented to
him in Scripture.
It is obvious that Carnells position with respect to Christianity as the most
unobjectionable hypothesis with which to explain reality that the rational man can find
is as far from the historic Protestant view as is the position of Rome.
In fact, Carnells method is more destructive of the Reformation view of Scripture
and its content than is the method of Romanism. This is true because Carnells method,
like that of DeWolf and that of Hordern, is largely built upon the modern freedom-nature
scheme. This scheme is, if possible, more self-consciously based upon man as
autonomous than was the form-matter scheme of Aristotle accepted by Rome. We have
seen that Carnell, with Kant, is willing to base all predication upon the irreducible and
most ultimate datum of freedom. It is the free spirit who asserts the primacy of the
teleological over the mechanical or the necessitarian. In his first book, it is the rational
man requiring all men everywhere to make peace with the fourth book of Aristotles
metaphysics. Those who think that God can be known through the heart119 must be
116 Idem.
117 Ibid., p. 174.
118 Ibid., p. 186.
119 Ibid., p. 74.
confronted with the rightful claims of Aristotle.120 And what of religious feeling? Is it the
most qualified organ of man to know God? It is strange that the proponents of the
argument for heart-knowledge have not hit upon the epileptic seizure as a serious
candidate for the office of religious feeling.121 Feelings cannot criticize themselves.
In his more recent works, however, it is to the demands of the heart, to the ineffable
experience of freedom, that even the requirements of logic must subject themselves. Does
this Kantian assumption of the ultimacy of freedom then imply that logic is now less
legislative than it was for Plato or for Aristotle? Not at all. It only implies that logic is
even more formal than it was before. And it is made more formal in order to allow for
pure fact better than Plato and Aristotle could. For Aristotle as well as for Plato
knowledge was of universals only. And this implied for them that there was, strictly
speaking, no knowledge of the changing world of sense. But Kant, we are told, wanted to
do justice to the idea of pure contingency. On his view, man has scientific knowledge in
terms of pure forms thought of as correlative to pure matter. And this scientific
knowledge is true for us, that is, for man, because it is the resultant of the projected
interaction of a projected pure form with a projected pure matter.
Thus the freedom-nature scheme is the hypostatized projection of the moral man who
hopes by it to preserve his status of autonomy. By means of this freedom-nature scheme,
the moral man of Kant tries to keep himself from facing his Creator-Redeemer either in
the realm of the phenomenal or in the realm of the noumenal. If the phenomenal
world is the sort of thing that Kant says it is, then it is nothing like the theater of the
revelation of God of which Calvin speaks. Then the power and Godhead of man, its
creator, that is, the ultimate source of its order, instead of the power and Godhead of God
are manifest in it. Then the miracles of redemption, centrally concentrated in the person
and work of Christ, cannot meet man there.
Holding to such a Kantian view of the realm of the phenomenal world, Hordern, with
Barth, says that nature gives us no clue of the revelation of God. And DeWolf as well as
Hordern holds that if God is in any sense to be thought of as revealed in nature, this
revelation must be so hidden that man cannot identify it with anything he knows. What
man identifies by knowledge cannot come to him from God. God must be the wholly
unknown and unknowable, and God must at the same time be wholly known. No
identification of either the object or subject of knowledge is possible in such a view.
Carnells method requires precisely this sort of view of the phenomenal world. And
this method is, if possible, more destructive of the idea of God and his revelation, both in
nature or history and in redemption, than is the method of Rome. Not that the Carnell-
DeWolf-Hordern method is inherently more destructive of the message of grace than is
the method of Rome. This would be impossible. Both methods are built upon the idea of
the autonomy of man. But the Carnell-DeWolf-Hordern method, based as it is on, and
expressive as it is of the Kantian freedom-nature scheme, is a more self-consciously anti-
Christian construct. As a modern soldiers machine-gun is more effective in killing a man
than was the farmers old shot-gun, so the freedom-nature scheme is more effective in
killing Christianity than was the form-matter scheme of Aristotle employed by Romanist
natural theologians.
120 Ibid., p. 78.

121 Ibid., p. 79.
In terms of the freedom-nature scheme, God can obviously not be immanent in
nature. The man back of this scheme has built a high barbed-wire fence round about the
realm of history and a keep-out, private property sign is put on top of every post of the
fence.
Again, in terms of the freedom-nature scheme the God of Christianity cannot be
found in the realm above nature. This realmthe noumena of Kanthas been swept
clean of any such thing as a God who can know and love himself. Whatever gods there be
up there, they must be personifications of an abstract and indeterminate principle of love,
love as the autonomous man thinks of love.
All in all then, Carnells doctrine of common grace is used to insinuate into
Protestantism a natural theology that is more clearly exclusive of the historic Christian
religion than is the natural theology of Rome. In the Reformed theologians, like Abraham
Kuyper and others, the idea of common grace is used to show how the natural man is
restrained from fully expressing himself in terms of his evil principle and that he is, in
spite of this evil principle, able to think and to do what is right up to a certain point. But
Carnell uses the idea of common grace to encourage the evil principle of human
autonomy in his desire to adulterate Christian teaching so as to make it palatable to the
natural man. 122
(2) Carnell Tends to Reduce the Ethical Status of Sin to that of
Metaphysical Tension
As suggested above, Carnells use of the idea of common grace already presupposes a
reduction of the idea of total depravity. Of course Carnell believes in total depravity. He
believes in the whole story of Christianity as told in Scripture. For him there is genuine
transition from wrath to grace in history. But again Carnell is driven to tone down this
teaching in terms of his method.
Throughout his writings Carnell describes the nature of mans predicament in terms
of the freedom-nature scheme rather than in terms of the Bible. Is mans predicament due
to the fact that he has broken the covenant of love with which he was confronted at the
beginning of history? Is man a sinner under the wrath of God because he has disobeyed
the known will of God? If this is what Carnell basically believes, then this basic belief is,
to say the least, virtually set aside in terms of his method.
Frequently one would think that Carnell has taken his doctrine of sin from Reinhold
Niebuhr and through him from Kierkegaard rather than from Scripture. Man is a
creature who is both in the process of history and who yet transcends history at every
point. This involvement and transcendence is the cause of that friction in the soul of man,
which, if unchecked, results in pessimism and suicide. What plagues man is death.123
Man must therefore plot such a universeif the law of contradiction and the facts of
experience will allowas will bear up the possibility of immortality.124 If the practical
problem of man is dispelling the fear of death through a successful union of the ideal and
the empirical worlds, the theoretical problem is the location of connection between these
realms. 125
122 Cf. the writers Common Grace (Philadelphia: Pres. and Ref. Pub. Co., 1962).
124 Ibid., p. 26.
125 Ibid., p. 29.
Fortunately, modern philosophy has been able to establish the primacy of the
teleological over the mechanical.126 Freedom not only enjoys transcendence over both
the self and other spirits. Its potentialities likewise include a flying visit around the
universe, and it will not rest until it has accomplished such a journey.127 Freedom
compounded with morality gives man his essence.128 Therefore in our daily life we
somehow manage to reach ultimate reality through suasions and convictions which
belong to us by nature.129 Scripture itself pays tribute to the primacy of spirit in man.130
We may therefore continue to think of the transcendental realm of fellowship of all free
spirits united through the bond of love.131 When love vanishes, the value of all else
vanishes too. Love is the precondition of everything. We freely do only what interests
us.132 In plainest tongue, Christ presumed to declare the very law of our own dignity,
the very law of life. To live is to love; and perfect love is found only when we know and
enjoy God on the one hand, and when we live self-sacrificially for one another on the
other. This is the final definition of our powers of spirit.133 The humanist, therefore, is
on solid ground when he refuses to define the normative life in lower terms than a selfless
devotion to all individuals.134 Even so, though humanism is good as far as it goes, we
must go beyond it. Of course whether or not God exists is a matter each person must
settle in his own heart. But as a problem of thought one cannot deny that the love which
an omnipotent being offers is theoretically preferable to the love man offers; for it is
united with a personality freed from all whimsicality on the one hand, and a will which
enjoys complete power over the prevailing conditions on the other.135 Thus the
heart,136 that is, the inner man gladly throws his hat in the ring on the truth of the
categorical imperative and his obligation to fulfill it.137 Kant has expressed humanism by
means of a priori rational argument. We must agree with him so far as he goes.138 Of
course this moral dilemma does not prove the existence of God, for it may be that God
does not exist. But the wedge has now been set for a transition from humanism to
theism.139 It gradually dawns upon the moral man that the second table of the law must
derive its authority from the first.140 If it happens to be good science that men should
be treated as ends and never as means (the ideal which the humanist is responsible for),
then it is likewise good science to declare for faith in the existence of God.141 Our life is
126 Philosophy, p. 147.

127 Ibid., p. 155.
128 Ibid., p. 164.
129 Ibid., p. 177.
130 Ibid., p. 179.
131 Ibid., p. 180.
132 Ibid., p. 211.
133 Ibid., p. 228.
134 Ibid., p. 240.
135 Ibid., p. 253.
136 Ibid., p. 254.
137 Ibid., p. 255.
138 Idem.
139 Ibid., p. 261.
140 Ibid., p. 269.
141 Ibid., p. 270.
steered by the presupposition that the values which define the true, good, and beautiful
have a commanding authority about them which cannot be exhausted.142 Thus we go
beyond humanism by our assertion that mans dignity finally rests in the fact that he
participates in a transtemporal trans-spatial realm of values which give normative
expression of the idea law of life.143 Thus we are catapulted into a realm of over-ought
in which transcendental powers of both condemnation and forgiveness are met.144
Christ made no attempt either to alter or to improve upon our native faith that love
constitutes the finest expression of freedom. He simply proceeded from this intuition and
gave cosmic significance to the relation of love. While rejecting the humanistic ideal as
incomplete, therefore, he nevertheless built upon its insights rather than derogating it as
untruth.145 And while pressing beyond the ideal of humanism, the heart has no
intentions to abandon the essential gains already made. Since the person-person relation
best expresses the powers of spirit, a cosmically directed act of freedom will fully satisfy
only when it bears similar characteristics. 146
Enough has now been said to indicate that Carnell largely describes the nature of sin
in terms of modern freedom-nature scheme. It is the moral man who projects the ideal
fellowship of love. God is brought in later in order to perform what only an omnipotent
being can perform, namely, reward good people properly. And in Christ the law of our
being, which we knew apart from him, is fulfilled.147 In Christianity time and eternity are
related according to the analogy of the heart.148 God must be understood after the
analogy of the highest values we know on earth; and these values are faith and love.149
Christ so excellently met the law of our nature that the heart shies away from seeking
more perfection in the rule of agape than in the person of Jesus Christ himself. 150
Kierkegaard interpreted reality with more energy than any one else from the
perspective of the free, ethical individual.151 According to Kierkegaard the real man is
expressed through ethical decision.152 And Carnell adds: I must say, it is easy to follow
the very one who wanted no followers. Without the stimulation of the Danish gadfly, I
probably would never have learned how to ask questions from the perspective of
inwardness. It is a pleasure to acknowledge my indebtedness to Kierkegaard.153 From
such men as Kant, Kierkegaard and Niebuhr, Carnell has learned to ask the proper
questions. And by their principle of inwardness, i.e., their principle of the self-sufficiency
of the moral or ethical self, Carnell has allowed himself to reduce the biblical view of sin
to metaphysical tension. The sinner of the Bible is reduced to the inherently good man of
Kant and his followers. The biblical idea of total depravity is reduced to the radical evil
142 Ibid., p. 271.
143 Ibid., p. 272.
144 Ibid., p. 273.
145 Ibid., p. 276.
146 Ibid., p. 283.
147 Ibid., p. 324.
148 Ibid., p. 326.
149 Ibid., p. 328.
150 Ibid., p. 373.
152 Idem.
153 Idem.
due to an involvement over which the free spirit has no control. The idea of total
depravity, says Carnell, is something which conservative Christianity has always
postulated as an integral element of its world view.154 Evil is that which resulted when
the creature willfully rebelled against the Creator.155 We must, therefore, speak of the
sinfulness and rebellion of the heart of fallen and depraved man.156 But if this is the
message Carnell wants to bring to modern man, he allows his method to compromise his
message.
(3) Carnells Method Would Require Him to Create God in Mans
Image
As Carnell believes in common grace and in total depravity, he believes also, as basic
to them, in the scriptural idea that man is created in the image of God. But on this point
too his method pulls him down into compromise. His method is to start with man as
autonomous. Starting from man as autonomous, Carnell worked up a modern form of
natural theology under the guise of common grace. Starting from man as autonomous and
therefore as inherently good Carnell was compelled to cater to the Kantian idea that God
is, in some utterly unintelligible fashion, an omnipotent being who will reward those who
are recommended to him as good by the good man. Similarly, we now note, starting
with the idea of human autonomy Carnell again caters to the idea that God is identical
with the projected ideals of the good man. And these three points are, naturally,
involved in one another.
In his book on Christian Commitment, Carnell advocates his third method of
knowing. At an earlier point it was noted that this method is not basically different from
his general method of systematic consistency. There is, however, a difference of
emphasis. In Apologetics Carnell laid great stress on the function of the law of
contradiction. In later works, and in particular in Christian Commitment Carnell stresses
the experience of value.
In each case, however, the starting point of the method employed is man as such. And
this starting point is diametrically opposite of that employed by Reformation theologians.
When Calvin explains his starting point, he says it is that of man as the creature made in
the image of God. But the natural man will not allow that he is a creature of God. The
natural man is the sinner who seeks at all times and in all ways to suppress the truth about
himself. He does not want to come face to face with God. So he tries to make himself
believe, in one way or another, that he is not a creature of God. It is only if the natural
man, the sinner, has by grace learned to know of his sin that he also knows of his
creatureliness. But he does not know of his sin unless he is saved from sin by the
redemptive work of Christ. But no one can know, i.e., know existentially, the redemptive
work of Christ except it be by the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit.
It is the believer who alone knows himself to be the image-bearer of God. He knows
this because he knows that by his sin he has lost the image of God. And he knows he has
lost the image of God because that image has been renewed in him through Christ. Col
3:10, Eph 4:24

155 Ibid., p. 292.
156 Ibid., p. 297.
Moreover, because man is created in the image of God, we may say that he has the
revelation of Gods presence built into his constitution. His knowledge of God is innate,
in the sense that his own constitution reflects to himself the presence of God.
And this innate knowledge as revelation of God is correlative to the revelation of God
in mans environment. Thus mans innate knowledge of God never operates
independently of the knowledge he acquires from the observation of his environment.
Still further, mans knowledge of God through observation of his own constitution
and his knowledge of God through his study of his environment do not function
independently of Gods direct person-to-person covenantal communication. Thus the
whole of mans relation to God, and indirectly the whole of mans relation to his created
environment, is a person-to-person, a covenantal affair. Man is he who as Gods image-
bearer answers to God. He answers to God. He answers to God always and everywhere.
When man answers properly in word or act, then he is the covenant-keeper. When he
answers, improperly, in word or act, then he is a covenant-breaker.
At the beginning of history Adam became a covenant-breaker. All men, represented
by him, come into the world as covenant-breakers (Rom 5:12).
The covenant-breaking attitude is expressed in mans virtual denial of his
creaturehood. It is expressed in mans assumption of autonomy. The autonomous man
may prove Gods existence or disprove it. This is a matter of indifference. A God whose
existence is proved from the standpoint of autonomy is not the God of Christianity at all.
Ren Descartes at the beginning of the modern era, most strikingly illustrates the idea
of human autonomy. His entire method presupposes it. Descartes assumes that his own
existence is intelligible to himself as a starting point for his thought whether or not God
exists.
His starting point differs toto coelo from the starting point of a man like Calvin. Yet
Carnell claims allegiance to a Christian message similar to that of Calvin while holding to
a starting point similar to that of Descartes.
Carnell says that he cannot see how a morally inspired person can evade the force of
the Cartesian argument.157 Here is what I defend: I think, therefore, I am morally
obliged to admit the reality of my own existence. 158 The third method of knowing
advocated by Carnell, the method of moral self acceptance, is therefore based on the
idea of the self-sufficient moral experience of man.
The argument for the ultimacy of moral self-acceptance is of the same nature as the
argument for the ultimacy of the law of contradictions. A skeptic establishes the law of
contradiction by his very effort to deny it.159 This is, says Carnell, the most perfect
philosophical argument ever devised. And his own argument for the ultimacy of moral
self-acceptance is of precisely the same nature. Routine conduct reveals our belief in
general being; excited conduct our belief in values; and morally inspired conduct our
belief in rectitude.160 As intellectual relativists must presuppose the law of contradiction,
so moral relativists must presuppose the moral absolute.161 Kierkegaard realized this fact

158 Idem.
159 Ibid., p. 40.
160 Ibid., p. 49.
161 Ibid., p. 65.
when he posited the free, ethical individual.162 We are committed to a moral absolute.
163
The existence of God as the administrator of justice164 is a deduction from the

already existing moral absolute. God completes the moral cycle by answering to the
judicial sentiment.165 The judicial sentiment is offended moral faculty.166 Thus
meaningful moral judgment implies the administrator of justice.167 And God is that
person to whom the violators of our dignity must give an account. The omnipresence of
God completes the moral cycle by answering to the judicial sentiment. 168
Thus it is man who, as the free spirit, is intelligible to himself in terms of his own
moral experience. This self-sufficient man constructs an omnipotent God to serve as
administrator of justice. In this way Carnell combines an essentially Cartesian starting-
point with a Kantian notion of God as the projection of the moral consciousness. All this
is done in name of the idea that man is made in the image of God.169 By virtue of mans
being made in the image of God, says Carnell, man shares in the life of God. Man
shares in the life of God whenever he makes contact with ultimate elements in either the
rational, aesthetic, or moral and spiritual environment. The true, the beautiful and the
good find their metaphysical status in God. Man comprehends each sphere through a
specific point of contact: the law of contradiction, the law of proportion, and the law of
life respectively. 170
God and man cannot meaningfully be compared unless they have something in
common. This is true of all analogies.171 In all analogies there is a univocal element.
So God and man have the moral and spiritual environment in common.172 Therefore
God is perfectly held by standards that hold an upright man imperfectly. 173
Here Carnell leads us back from the God of Christianity who is himself the
embodiment and standard of the good for man made in his image to the Platonic notion of
a god who, together with man, not made in his image, looks up to the Good as an abstract
principle.
It is this reversal of the position of man and God that Carnell falls into when he is true
to his method.
(4) Carnells Method Would Force Him to the Denial of God as
the Creator of Man
We have just listened to Carnell when he said that the true, the good and the beautiful
form an environment that surrounds both God and man. By means of this environment he
162 Ibid., p. 73.

163 Ibid., p. 92.
164 Ibid., p. 101.
165 Idem.
166 Ibid., p. 92.
167 Ibid., p. 103.
168 Ibid., p. 108.
169 Ibid., p. 135.
170 Idem.
171 Ibid., p. 137.
172 Idem.
173 Ibid., p. 138.
seeks to bring about harmony between his theory of knowledge, his theory of aesthetics
and his theory of morality.
In each case it is man as autonomous that constitutes the starting point. This man has
within him the standards of truth, of beauty and of goodness. This autonomous man
projects a God who, as an omnipotent administrator must do for man what because of his
finitude he cannot do, namely, bring to realization his desired victory over untruth, over
ugliness and over evil. All of this amounts to saying that Carnells method requires him to
raise man to the position of virtual creator of God.
Of course, Carnell believes that God is mans Creator. But there is here complete
contradiction between his faith and his method.
Carnell obscures this contradiction by his use of the idea of analogy. The idea of
analogy always requires, he says, a univocal point. Analogy without a point of identity
leads to pure irrationalism. In morality, as noted a moment ago, this means that God and
man have a common moral environment. Carnells argument with respect to the
univocal point between God and man is always the same. In the realm of the
intellectual the argument is as follows. The Bible asserts, Are not my thoughts higher
than your thoughts. But from this we must not conclude that Gods thoughts are
different from our thoughts. For on that basis, how do we know that they are thoughts at
all, let alone that they are Gods thoughts. 174
Since then there is a point of identity between Gods thoughts and our thoughts, we
may expect, in time, to understand Gods revelation exhaustively. Time and illumination
alone stop us from understanding the entire revelation of God. 175
By virtue of the univocal element between Gods thoughts, we may therefore
confidently apply the law of contradiction as stated by Plato and Aristotle as a criterion of
the truth of one revelational claim over against another revelational claim and use it also
to assure ourselves that the revelation we accept will tell us nothing that is out of accord
with truth already known. The covenant of grace, the basis for our hope in personal,
immortal felicity rests its entire weight upon the historicity of the miraculously
conceived, miraculously endowed, and miraculously resurrected Christ, the God-Man.176
But the rational man, believing as he does in the univocal relation between time and
eternity,177 finds nothing repulsive in this. In this entire system of salvation there is
nothing repulsive to the reason of man; there is nothing impossible, immoral, absurd,
nothing inconsistent with the corpus of well-attested truth.178 The rational man would not
accept this system of salvation if he could not, by virtue of the univocal element
between God and man, rest assured that this system of salvation is ready to make peace
with the fourth book of Aristotles metaphysics. Philosophy presupposes that reason
guides the wise man into life, and Christianity does not gain say this.179 Christianity is
the best hypothesis with which man may find coherence in all his experience.
Thus it is that reason as autonomous, as well as the moral consciousness as
autonomous, assume their inherent ultimacy or divinity. As morality in man and in God

175 Idem.
176 Ibid., p. 245.
177 Ibid., note, p. 244.
178 Ibid., p. 179.
179 Philosophy, p. 29.
are bound by a common moral environment, so revelation would be sheer gibberish if
there were not a univocal, rational element uniting the meaning of propositions
entertained by both God and man. 180
It is crystal clear that the present manthe only man we happen to knowcan
find no meaning in loving a God who follows other than the laws of logic when he
speaks.181 God abides by the laws of Aristotelian logic because of his immutable
covenant to respect the conditions of fellowship which this type of a creation
presupposes. 182
Therefore it is the rational man, the good man when multiplied into a decent
society, that sets the standards of truth and goodness. Jesus is a good man because he
verified everything that a decent society means by goodness.183 This rational man sets
the examination for Jesus Christ in terms of Aristotles demands and passes him summa
cum laude. 184
It is therefore man, not as created but as virtual creator, who speaks and ordains
reality in terms of his speech. It is the autonomous man who reduces the all-knowing and
all-powerful God and Christ of Scripture into the abstract, unknowing, non-acting Form
of Aristotle and who reduces the created world, the theatre of Gods convenantal
transactions with man, into a meaningless intermingling of this Form with pure matter.
The law of contradiction of the fourth book of Aristotles Metaphysics is part of that
metaphysics. Aristotles metaphysics is compounded of pure form and pure matter.
Applying the law of contradiction to the facts of experience, Aristotles autonomous man
produces a pure form above and pure matter beneath himself. This autonomous man
demands that experience must be exhaustively penetrable to him by means of his logical
powers. But how can such a requirement be met if the stuff of experience by definition
has no order in it? The result of the application of pure form to pure matter is a
meaningless interaction between an abstract principle of rational determinism and an
equally abstract principle of irrational indeterminism. For Aristotle, knowledge is by
means of universals only. There is accordingly no knowledge of the changing course of
nature and history. Aristotles God cannot meet man in history with his law of love. Man
cannot sin against God or be saved by God in history. There is no possible confrontation
of God as revealing and of man as responding in history.
And yet Carnell seeks to compress the whole of the Christian message of covenant
transaction between God and man into this wholly alien framework of thought. In the
methodology of Carnell, it is man who is Gods creator; in the message of Carnell it is
God who is mans creator.
(5) Carnells Method Requires the Reduction of Gods Electing
Love for Sinners to a Society of Autonomous Men.
In conclusion, we point out the fact that though Carnell believes in the electing love
of God, his method forces him to speak, all too often, of a fellowship of free spirits after
the pattern of Kant.
180 Ibid., p. 306.

181 Idem.
182 Idem.
183 Case for Orthodox Theology, p. 82.
In his book on The Kingdom of Love and the Pride of Life, he speaks of the law of
love in the way that he spoke in Apologetics of the law of contradiction and in
Christian Commitment of the judicious sentiment.185 These are for Carnell the absolutes
of human experience. A moral individual is one who loves. Only love accepts another
without forecast, interest, or calculation.186 Love cheerfully limits itself by the mystery
of the beloved.187 God and man share the same moral and spiritual environment, and
the content of this environment is love.188 Love comprises the stuff of rectitude the
imperative essence, the law of life, the moral and spiritual environment, and the essence
of God.189 Love is the univocal element which makes it possible to say, God is good;
and An upright man is good, for good is but another name for love. 190
Keeping in mind the univocal element between God and man, we are able, argues
Carnell, to see that justice, consideration and love are not three separate moral
responses. Quite to the contrary, we look for nothing but love.191 Of course, it is proper
to speak of the judicial sentiment as the narrow point of contact between God and
man.192 Even as God blesses those who love, so he creates judicial unrest in those who
hate.193 Thus for man, love alone answers to the essential self. 194
It is obvious that in all this it is Carnells method that seeks to frustrate the electing
and sovereign love of God for man in terms of the abstract and indiscriminate principle of
love. Here there is no room for the triune God who as the self-determinate, holy being
loves himself and creates man in his image so that men might love him above all else.
Here exists no room for man, created with love in his heart to God, but now hating God
and his neighbor. Further no room exists for the wrath of God abiding upon all men,
because all have sinned in Adam and daily love themselves instead of God. Here there is
no room for an exhibition of the love of God, through the crucifixion of him who knew
no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Here exists no room for
sovereign love, for Jesus Christ who came to save his people from their sin. In short, on
Carnells method, love is merely an abstract principle that constitutes the environment of
both God and man. For some unknown reason God is thought of as being fully in
harmony with the principle of love while man is not. But mans essential self is love.
Why should man need God or Christ at all? Perhaps man can use him with profit as an
ideal for himself. Perhaps, if God has almighty power as well as unlimited or
indiscriminate love attributed to him, we may think of him as the administrator of love.
He will do so by somehow creating judicial unrest in those who do not love. Surely he
will never punish them.
Thus Carnells method leads him to speak of the kingdom of love. It is the kingdom
of free spirits who, with the full knowledge and permission of science, believe in the
185 Kingdom of Love, p. 6.

187 Idem.
188 Ibid., p. 208.
189 Idem.
190 Idem.
191 Idem.
192 Ibid., p. 209.
193 Idem.
194 Idem.
primacy of the teleological. This kingdom of love is the decent society of good men,
plotting a rational and moral universe for themselves in which their good works will be
duly rewarded in this life, and presumably in the next.
Surely Hordern and DeWolf can have no objection to an orthodoxy which can be
thus pressed into the freedom-nature framework on which their own thinking is built.
They have themselves each in their own way reduced Christian teaching into the
Procrustes-bed of post-Kantian philosophy.
Of course Christianity cannot be thus compressed. And Carnells message shines forth
through his books in spite of his method. Too anxious about making Christianity
acceptable to its cultured despisers, both Horderns New Reformation theology and
DeWolfs Christianity in Liberal Perspective have told the modern man what the modern
man had already told himself. Would that Carnell had signalized the fact that modern
theology has in their case capitulated to the method of modern philosophy and modern
science with devastating result. Would that he had clearly shown that philosophy and
science can have no fruitful methodology even in their own field unless they base
themselves frankly on the truth of the message of Christianity. This message comes, in
the nature of the case, by authority. The God of the Bible, as self-contained, cannot speak
in any other way than by authority. Even the facts of science speak to man in the
imperative voice. If man obeys the loving call of God to love God above all else and his
neighbor as himself, then he will make even the I-it dimension self-consciously
subservient to the fulfilment of the cultural mandate given him at the beginning of
history. He can do this only through Christ, through whom the world was created, by
whom it is sustained, and by whom it was redeemed. This moral and spiritual self-
acceptance is his only if by the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit man learns to love
instead of to hate.
4
Chapter 4:
Calvinism
It is not our purpose in this chapter to discuss Calvinism from any other point of view
except from that of its ability or inability to bring the challenge of the gospel of Christ to
modern man. We strive not for a theology of Calvin or of Calvinism as a whole.
Christianity is the only hope of the world, and therefore the only hope for modern man.
However, this cannot be shown to be true unless it be made evident that Christianity not
only has its own methodology but also that only its methodology gives meaning to human
life.
In Calvinism more than in any other form of Protestantism the message of
Christianity is clearly presented is a challenge to the wisdom of the world. The natural
man must not be encouraged to think that he can, in terms of his own adopted principles,
find truth in any field. He must rather be told that, when he finds truth, even in the realm
of the phenomenal, he finds it in terms of principles that he has borrowed, wittingly
or unwittingly, from Christianity. The fact of science and its progress is inexplicable
except upon the presupposition that the world is made and controlled by God through
Christ and that man is made and renewed in the image of God through Christ.
It goes without saying that Roman Catholicism does not present the natural man with
any such challenge. On the contrary, the Romanist approach to the natural man is
controlled by the assumption that he need not be challenged with Christian truth in the
realm of nature. And the same thing is true also for those forms of Protestantism that
are based on Arminian theology, which ascribes to man a certain measure of autonomy.
On the assumption of this measure of autonomy, Bishop Butler, for example, proceeds to
argue that the Christian and the non-Christian can together, in joint enterprise, give the
right interpretation of nature. With this goes Butlers argument that the natural man
need only to extend the operation of his principles in order to recognize the possible, the
probable, and even the actual truth of Christianity.
1. Calvinism and Modern Thought
It was through Butler and others like him that the natural theology of Romanism was
brought into the Protestant camp. But the idea of natural theology is wholly out of accord
with the genius of Protestantism, and this is true for a different reason than that given by
Hordern. Hordern argues that there are no clues to God found in nature at all. But Calvin
following Paul argues constantly that God is clearly revealed in nature. He argues that the
reason why man does not find God in nature is that he, man, has been blinded by sin.
According to Calvin, it is mans ethical hostility to God that keeps him from seeing the
true situation about himself and his environment. Calvin says that the light of God shines
everywhere as with the brightness of the sun but that men have, as it were, taken out their
eyes and therefore do not see this light. To be sure, there is the ineradicable sense of deity
within them. To be sure also, the natural man has a conscience that accuses or excuses
him. But this is due to the everpresent and inescapable presence of the light of the
revelation of God. The worst of men, says Calvin, cannot wholly efface from their
memory the fact that from the beginning of history man has walked in the light of the
revelation of God. Throughout history, since the fall of all men in Adam, men have tried
to suppress and push aside the truth in unrighteousness. They have blinded their eyes and
then complained that God has created them in darkness. They search with great diligence
for the existence of a God while they, are walking every minute in the light of his
presence. The natural theologian is like a child who daily and constantly sees his father in
the fathers home and yet who takes a lantern in order to search for him.
To be sure, the sinner needs new light as well as a new power of sight. He needs the
light of the grace of God in Christ. If the water supply of a city is sufficient for the
ordinary needs of its citizens, it none-the-less takes the fire hose to put out a conflagration
started by mischievous hands. So the light of the grace of God in Christ as redemptive is
given to those who have wilfully taken out their own eyes and are trying to blame their
darkness on the God who had created them in a relation of light and love to himself. But
when the natural man is confronted with this new, yet more brilliant light of the grace of
God he quickly seeks to put out this light too. He says there cannot be a revelation of God
to him unless God reveals himself exhaustively. By this demand he asserts, in effect, that
God must be wholly like himself. He further adds that if there is truly to be a god who is
different from and therefore higher than himself whom he is to find, then this God must
be wholly unlike him and therefore wholly hidden in his revelation.
The New Reformation theology is new precisely because it agrees with the natural
man in these his demands and yet claims to follow Luther and Calvin. But no theology
that seeks to satisfy the false requirements of the natural man can fairly be said to be a
reformation theology. So the New Reformation theology is, in effect, a new natural
theology which is, if possible, more destructive of the gospel presented by the Reformers
than was the older Liberalism. The entire objection against natural theology, so far as this
objection springs, for example, from Calvin, is that such a theology starts with man as
autonomous. The autonomy of man is far more clearly present in the New Reformation
theology than it is in the theology of Rome. DeWolf is quite right from his point of view
when he frankly appeals to natural theology as a foundation for a theology of grace even
though he, as well as Hordern, is controlled in his thinking by the freedom-nature scheme
of post-Kantian thought. But the more inexplicable thing is that Carnell, while claiming
to construct his theology in line with the historic Reformed tradition, should yet use a
method that presupposes the legitimacy of the new natural theology involved in this
modern freedom-nature scheme.
What we are now concerned to establish is that this entire freedom-nature scheme
must be challenged in the name of Christianity. It must be shown that unless the method
of science, the method of philosophy and the method of theology are taken from the
message of the actually present revelation of Gods grace in Jesus Christ they all lead
from nowhere into nothing. And only a Calvinist is in a position, by virtue of his truly
biblical methodology, to do this. All other forms of Protestant theology have, to some
extent, catered to the natural man. They have allowed that this natural man is right, at
least to some extent, in asserting his autonomy. If this is true, then the natural man would
also be right, to an extent at least, in claiming that he can stand in judgment over the
revelation, even the redemptive revelation, of God. Then he is right when he picks and
chooses only such truths of Scripture as accord with his supposed freedom.
Not all Calvinists have been willing to follow the demands of their own principle.
Some have clung to the idea of natural theology. Shall we criticize them for this? Let us
rather stand on their shoulders because of their constructive work in theology, and see
that today more than ever before and as never before Christianity must present itself as
the truth in the light of which alone any truth can be found. Any form of synthesis
theology is deadly, and this fact is clearly true in our day. To do anything short of
presenting Christianity by means of a method that springs from itself is not to offer men a
significant choice in the present confused theological situation. The very idea of
significant choice already presupposes the truth of Christianity. How can we account for
the idea of significant choice? How can we ask an intelligent question, let alone find an
intelligent answer? Only if we have a God who through Christ controls whatsoever
comes to pass do we have an alternative to placing man in a vacuum. Every form of
Protestant theology that will not from the beginning place the very idea of significant
choice within the framework of Christian truth has already capitulated its own position
and after that must live by the grace of its enemy, the autonomous man. Why is it that
Carnell is unable to lead men on to the hope that lies in the message of grace through
Christ? It is because he agrees with the natural man to the effect that he needs no grace so
far as his dealings with the things of nature are concerned. It is because he agrees with the
natural man when the latter claims to know himself and his own predicament in terms of
himself to a very large extent.
If Carnell had not claimed to follow Reformed leaders in the construction of his
theology, then this measure of compromise would be explicable. Romanism and
Arminianism are varying forms of a synthesis theology. They are quite consistent when in
their apologetics they follow such methods as were contrived by Aquinas and Butler. It is
quite consistent for one who holds to an Arminian theology to agree to a large extent with
the methodology of the natural man. Arminian theology contends that man is in some
measure influenced and surrounded by pure contingency. The Arminian calls this
freedom. He claims to defend the idea of human responsibility over against Calvinist
determinism. But in doing so he fails to see that, to the extent that one accepts
contingency, to that extent human responsibility would have to function in a vacuum.
When this is pointed out to the Arminian, he hastens to claim the inheritance of Christian
teaching with respect to creation and providence. Thus he shuttles back and forth between
two exclusive positions. But Carnell is no Arminian. So he has no right to shuttle back
and forth between creation and autonomy. Then why does he appeal to the primacy of the
ethical, or the teleological, as this is maintained by those who, in effect, deny the
Christian religion altogether? Of course he does so in order to win men to Christ. But if
men are won to Christ by means of Carnells method it is, as earlier noted, in spite of this
method. And the responsibility of Christians is to follow Christ. They must be obedient to
him. They must believe him when he says that he is the way, the truth, and the life. They
must believe him when he says that no one can come to the Father except through him.
They must hold then that there is no such thing as theism unless this theism is conjoined
with Christianity. The idea of Greek theism is a monstrosity.
With this background we now turn to an examination of the modern freedom-nature
scheme so far as this is based upon the philosophy of Kant. The difference between
Hordern and DeWolf falls within the freedom-nature scheme. One person likes Post
Toasties and the other likes Kelloggs Corn Flakes. One likes theology in liberal
perspective and another likes a theology with more tradition behind it and which follows
the New Reformation theology. Others want still more tradition and therefore return to
the mother church. Shall we, in this situation, offer Christianity as being perhaps like a
wheat germ having a more potent and more concentrated form of energy than any other
breakfast cereal? This is certainly not what Carnell intends to do, but his method allows
for nothing better.
2. Calvinism and the Freedom-Nature Scheme
To challenge the freedom-nature scheme, and with it the modern forms of theology
based upon it, it is of basic importance that we look first into Kants view of man. And we
must at once compare this to the Christian view.
A. Kants View of Man
Kants idea of man is best expressed in his own notion of autonomy. And the first
thing to note about this idea of autonomy is that it cannot be stated without involving a
construction of reality as a whole in terms of this autonomy. Of course Kant says that he
starts merely from facts of experience. He wants no metaphysics. He starts from the fact
of science. He starts from the act of the moral experience. But he finds these facts
because he has from the outset placed them where they are in terms of his own autonomy.
If man is autonomous, then he acts as autonomous when he is engaged in intellectual
interpretation. That is to say, in assuming mans autonomy Kant virtually takes for
granted the essentially legislative character of human thought. True indeed, it is precisely
this legislative character of thought that he seems, at first glance, to oppose. Does he not
reject the rationalist approach to the problem of reality? Would he, for one moment, agree
with the Dutch Jew Spinoza that the order and connection of things is the same as the
order and connection of ideas? Would he, for one moment, agree with Parmenides when
he says, in effect, that by the application of the law of contradiction mans intellectual
thought can determine the nature of reality. Was it not Kant who first taught us to take
time seriously?1 Did he not limit the function of the intellect to a formal activity in
relation to facts that must come to it from a realm of contingency? All this is true. But all
this does not change the fact that for him intellectual thought does, in effect, legislate for
the nature of ultimate reality. On Kants view mans autonomous intellectual activity can
tell us what ultimate reality cannot be. And to say what ultimate reality cannot be is, in
effect, the same as to say that it can and must be. Kants rejection of metaphysics simply
leads him to the adoption of a new metaphysics.
Kant argues that man is free. This, he says, is a fact of experience. But if we are not to
let this fact escape us, he argues, then we must protect it against all forms of determinism
and rationalism. The worst form of determinism is for him such as is represented by the
idea that God has actually created the world and actually controls the destinies of all men.
We need to use the law of contradiction negatively and then we see at once, argues Kant
in effect, that man cannot be free and determined at the same time. Surely, he says, in
effect, I am very modest in comparison to the rationalists and the natural theologian. I
have shown that the laws of logic must not be used positively. We cannot prove the
existence of God. I use the laws of logic negatively when it comes to speaking of God. I
am thus making room for faith.
In spite of this seeming modesty in the use of logic on the part of Kant, it must be
maintained that he has excluded the possibility of the existence of God as effectively as
have the natural theologians. The natural theologians excluded the God of Christianity by
proving the existence of another god in his place. Kant excludes the Christian idea of
God by proving that he cannot exist as the known creator and redeemer of men. Kant
makes a universal a priori negative assertion on the basis of himself as autonomous about
the impossibility of the existence and knowability of the self-contained God of Scripture.
In other words, on Kants view, the autonomous man can, by swinging the logicians
postulate, determine what cannot be found in reality. And this applies to the world of the
noumenal as well as to the world of the phenomenal.
Kant keeps God out of the world of the phenomenal by establishing the validity of
science in terms of the ultimate organizing activity of the autonomous man. In other
words, the man of Kant takes over, in effect, the functions of God as these are set forth in
Scripture. On Kants view, mans organizing activity, as this is expressed through the
logical function of man, is assumed to be the final source of order in the facts of nature
and history.
Kant also makes man the ultimate source in the realm of the noumenal. To be sure, he
says that the free man is free because he listens to the voice of the categorical imperative.
He says that man, freed from all involvement in nature, hears the voice Thou shalt and
therefore responds and says I can. Reality cannot, he argues, be of such a nature that
anything should be required of the moral man that he cannot do. Therefore the story of
1 Cf. Norman Kemp Smith, A Contemporary on Kants Critique of Pure Reason, London,
1923. Introduction.
the fall of man as we read it in Scripture cannot refer to a temporal fact at the beginning
of the course of history. It must be symbolical of an act of freedom of the free man who
exists as the homo noumenon above nature. The biblical idea of original sin cannot be
of any meaning to us unless we take it as a symbol of what takes place within the inward
activity of man independent of the relativity and determinism of nature. And if
Christianity speaks of mans need of grace, then this cannot take away the fact that man
has within himself the plenary power to improve himself. Mans radical evil cannot mean
anything like the Reformed doctrine of total depravity. If it did, then we should drag the
free ethical individual down from the noumenal realm of freedom into the predetermined
relations of the phenomenal world. The whole message of Christianity, the story of the
transition from wrath to grace in history, must therefore be symbolical of transactions that
take place within the moral self as wholly self-dependent.
Here then we have the principle of inwardness that Kroner and many other
theologians praise so much in Kant. It is this principle of inwardness according to which
Kant is often said to be the theologian of Protestantism. It is this principle of inwardness
that underlies the theology of Hordern and of DeWolf. It is this principle of inwardness
that Kierkegaard has developed on the basis of Kant and has intertwined with the
principle of Christianity so skilfully that it would seem to be able to deceive the very
elect of God. But of this we cannot speak in this connection (cf. the writers The New
Modernism and his Christianity and Barthianism).
B. The Biblical View of Man
It may be asked at this point whether it is possible for anyone to escape setting the
first fact of experience that he thinks he meets in an intellectual framework. And if not,
why should we object to Kants doing so?
We reply that it is indeed impossible for any man to make any statement about any
fact of experience without doing so in terms of an all-inclusive view of reality. And we
can only rejoice if there seems today to be some measure of appreciation of this fact, for
to the extent that this is the case we need no longer concern ourselves with the idea of
neutrality. And to the extent that such is the case, we may start from the assumption
that every bit of scientific search for facts already proceeds upon a basic view with
respect to reality. Then we may evaluate all so-called non-Christian anti-metaphysical
theories of science and philosophy as being, in effect, identical with a metaphysics of
ultimate flux, a metaphysics of the night in which all cows are black. And then we may,
for our purposes, think of all Christians opposed to the use of the word metaphysics as
speaking of a terminological question only. All men presuppose, whatever the name they
use for it, a synoptic view of reality as a whole. We continue to call it metaphysics. 2
We must now set the biblical view of man over against that of Kant. But are we not
speaking of Calvinism? Why do we not then deal with the Calvinist view of man? The
answer is that the center of Calvinism is its idea of making every thought captive to the
obedience of Christ as he speaks in Scripture. Those who really believe that Christ speaks
through his prophets and apostles in the Scripture do not set the autonomous man, the
rational man, or the moral man above the Scriptures. Romanism and, to a lesser extent,
Arrninianism do this: And Carnell followed their lead.
2 Cf. H. J. Popma, Levensbeschouwing, Vol. 4., Amsterdam, 1962. Popma seeks to
escape using any of the scholastic terminology as well as all scholastic content of
thought.
But if Scripture is thus self-authenticating, it is because Christ speaks to us through it.
The Bible is, as it were, a letter from Christ to his people, to his Church. But Christ is
God. He speaks to his Church so that his Church might speak to mankind. All men are
men as standing in covenant relation to the triune God. It is Christ who says I am the
way, the truth and the life. He says this as the Son of God. God identifies himself as the
I am. There are no laws of truth, goodness or beauty above him to which he need or
even can make reference. All law, in the phenomenal and in the noumenal realm
alike, proceeds from him. Again, there are no facts of the world of space and time that act
as an independent and therefore as a possibly or actually refractory power below him.
There is no such thing as pure contingency. The very idea of possibility so far as man
deals with it, gets its meaning from God as the self-referential, self-contained I am for he
speaks in Christ. It is this God of pure inwardness in terms of which the Christian
interprets himself and his cosmic environment.
At this basic point then the Christian and the Kantian position stand diametrically
opposed to one another. The autonomous man of Kant says I am and allows nothing more
ultimate than itself. The Christian says I am in terms of Christ and God as the great I am.
It is Descartes or Calvin. It is Kant or Calvin.
The would-be self-contained man of Kant cannot, of course, be self-contained. To
attain to its vaunted independence or freedom it has to cut cables with its environment
altogether. Kants autonomous self has to wrestle itself free from the disfiguring detritus
of the sensuous realm in which it is, by chance, involved. And this free man has to
accomplish its freedom by means of an intellectual effort which, because it is an
intellectual effort, sucks man back into the sensuous realm. On Kants view man is not
free unless he has wholly extracted himself from the realm of nature. But he has to do this
by means of a ladder constructed with materials taken from the realm of nature. And he
has to set this ladder upon the realm of the phenomena as this has already been
constructed by a form that rests in man as noumenal or free. If Kant could only, for a
moment, borrow the God of Christianity to have him uphold nature long enough for him
to escape from it, it would perhaps help him. But no, in that case he would want no
freedom by way of an escape from nature. Then he would want freedom that is freedom
in and unto Christ.
In other words, the free man of Kant is not free unless he has cut all cables with the
phenomenal world, which world he has first given the only order it has by virtue of the
form that proceeds from the free self. And the free self can give the phenomenal world no
order because this free self exists only by virtue of negation of that world.
There can then be no possible meaning to the idea of freedom as Kant develops it.
Kants free man is free only when he is wholly unknown even to himself. And when he is
in any degree known to himself, he is to that extent not free.
From the Christian point of view, the effort of Kant in the construction of his free man
is, therefore, quite the opposite from what Richard Kroner asserts it to be. Kroner thinks
of the principle of inwardness as it finds expression in Kants idea of freedom as being in
accord with biblical principles. Says Kroner: Kants ethical principle is in accordance
with the gospel which emphasizes throughout that not the effect of our doings but only
the purity of our heart matters in the sight of God. Kroner refers in this connection to the
words of Jesus as recorded in Matthew 5:8: Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall
see God and to similar passages. 3
Kroners assertion on this point sheds the clearest possible light on the basic
difference between a theology such as Hordern and DeWolf represent and such as was
held by the Reformers. The new Reformation theology and the new Liberalism are
basically new because they virtually ascribe the same position to Kants primacy of the
ethical as does Kroner.
The traditional Reformation theology would look at the matter quite otherwise. It
would see in the assertion of Kants idea of self-sufficient ethical inwardness, as this
underlies Kants idea of ethics and therefore as it underlies his total approach to all
reality, nothing better than an expression of the basic ethical hostility of covenant-
breaking man to the living God and to the Christ whom he has sent to save men from this
very thing. In other words, the most basic ethical choice is that between the interpretation
of man in terms of his own self-sufficient inwardness or in terms of Gods self-sufficient
inwardness as revealed in Scripture.
It is well that at this juncture the similarity between Kants view of inwardness to that
of Socrates be pointed out. When Socrates meets Euthyphro, he is happy indeed. Here is
a young man ready to give him a definition of the holy. But soon the usual
disappointment returns. The abundance of his wisdom has made Euthyphro indolent.
Socrates wants an intrinsic definition of the holy. He is not concerned with the
biographically interesting but logically meaningless question of what gods or men think
of holiness. The point which I should first wish to understand is whether the pious or
holy is beloved by the gods because it is holy, or holy because it is beloved of the gods.4
Socrates wants a definition of the holy or the good regardless of what gods and men may
say about it.
Here then is the principle of ethical inwardness operative in Socrates. Kant expresses
the same principle more fully and more consistently when he says: Our ethics must be
precise and holy. The moral law is holy not because it has been revealed to us. Its
holiness is original and our own reason is capable of revealing it to us. This fact makes us
ourselves the judges of the revelation, since holiness is the highest, most perfect good
which we can derive from ourselves, from our understanding.5 This idea of independent
holiness prevails through all of Kants ethical writings. In fact it forms the basic
principles of everything he says on ethics. Man, argues Kant, is a member of a kingdom
of ends. And he belongs to this kingdom as sovereign so that he is not subject to the
will of any other.6 When God is to be obeyed, it is because God points us to a good that
is above him. The concept of a divine will, determined according to pure moral laws
alone, allows us to think of one religion which is purely moral as it did of only one God.
7
Brief reference may also be made to Plato. Kroner thinks that, as far as the Greeks are
concerned, the principle of inwardness has been best expressed by Socrates. Kroner
3 Speculation and Revelation in Modern Philosophy, p. 221.

4 The Dialogues of Plato, tr. by B. Jowett, Vol. 1, p. 294.
5 Lecture on Ethics, tr. by J. MacMurray, New York, p. 75.
6 Kant, Critique of Practical Reason, etc.
7 Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, tr. by Theodore M. Greene, Chicago, 1934,
p. 95.
thinks of Platos penchant for metaphysics as evidence of a measure of departure from the
tendency toward the primacy of the ethical so beautifully expressed in Socrates. But from
the point of view of traditional Protestantism, the position of Plato as well as that of
Socrates is one of pure immanentism.
What basic difference is there between the idea of the good as visualized by Plato and
the idea of the good as visualized by Socrates? They have in common the all-important
point that, in their view, mans ultimate good is not to be traced to the expression of the
will of God to man. Plato may look for good as above man, in the sense of existing in a
world of ideas by itself. Let us say that if Socrates had known of such a desire on Platos
part, he would not have shared it. But neither would Socrates agree with the Sophists. He
sought for or assumed a universal element as present in his moral consciousness. Both
Socrates and Plato (a) exclude Gods will as the source of the delineation of what is good
for man, and (b) both seek for an objective idea of the good as in some sense reaching
beyond the will of the individual man. Both therefore seek for objectivity, but both seek it
independently of Gods will for man. For Plato and Socrates alike the first principle of
ethics is found in man as autonomous.8 For Plato as well as for Socrates, the good, as
objective, is virtually nothing more than a projection of the self-sufficient moral
consciousness of man. Kant merely carried out more consistently than did either Socrates
or Plato the principle of mans complete independence from God. For Socrates, for Plato
and for Kant the simple Christian teaching that for man the good is that which God, on
the basis of his holy nature, calls good, and evil that which he calls evil, would be
tantamount to a destruction of the purity of the ethical principle.
Herewith, thinking again of Kroner, we are bound to maintain that the Kantian idea of
pure inwardness is, in effect, an attempt on the part of man to take the place of God. Kant
only carries forward the principle of Socrates and the principle of Plato.
As then the Christian builds his view of man, he does so unashamedly on the basis of
the Christian story. This story is the story of the covenant. Man was created as a
covenant-keeper, but he soon became a covenant-breaker. When we say he became a
covenant-breaker, we mean by that that all men after Adam through the fall of Adam, the
first man, came into the world as covenant-breakers (Rom 5:12). Here human choice is so
significant that the action of the first man colors the nature of the actions of all later men.
All later men are under the wrath and curse of God because of Adams rejection of the
word of Gods love and command. And they daily add to their sinfulness by their
constantly renewed disobedience. But then come the glad tidings of the grace of God in
Christ. He who thought it not robbery to be called equal with God because he was God
humbled himself to the death, even the death of the cross. And he who knew no sin was
made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Substitution!
What a horrible idea! says Kant. How can you take this story of the transition from wrath
to grace as being historical? Indeed, say Hordern and DeWolf, take it symbolically and
we will all accept it. As long as your story does not insult us as morally self-sufficient
men, we can readily use it. In fact, we even have to use some such story. Is it not true
that, though we exist independently of this story and above it, we must yet communicate
with one another and with our projected God by means of the sensuous world, and
therefore by way of symbolism or allegory, in short, by means of a story? We all need the
story. But we must all demythologize the story we use. That is, we must all say that the
8 Cf. Republic, Jewett, Vol. 2, p. 361.

story stands for something that really takes place within the self-sufficient moral subject.
Then, and only then, all is well.
C. Kants Kingdom of Ends
We recall at this point that we are basically seeking to discover why it is that Hordern
and DeWolf teach an adulterated Christianity. And we are seeking to discover why it is
that Carnell constantly defeats his own purposes as he seeks to bring a true Reformation
theology to men. Instead of challenging the idea of human autonomy that underlies a
theology such as that of Hordern and DeWolf in terms of the Christian story, Carnell, as
well as they, starts with it. Moreover, we are concerned with these three men as
representative of current movements of thought. We have found that there is no
significant choice between the theology of Hordern and the theology of DeWolf. We have
also found that there would be no significant choice between the theology of Hordern and
DeWolf and theology of Carnell if the latter were true to his method. His method would
devour his story.
We may well speak of the Hordern-DeWolf-Carnell method. For the method of all
three is based upon the modern freedom-nature scheme. And this scheme is based on
Kants idea of man as autonomous. This method requires the death of the Christian story.
So far in this chapter we have dealt with this autonomous man. But we have dealt
chiefly with one aspect of him. We have seen him assert his freedom. And we have seen
that this freedom means complete isolation. Afraid of God, the autonomous man seeks to
hide from God. But there is no hiding from God. The free man of Kant would be like
Admiral Byrd at the south pole if, after having arrived there by means of equipment made
with the help of others, he had cut all his lines of communication with them and lived
alone with the penguins. In other words, Kants free man would be free only if he could
live and move and have his being in a vacuum. As soon as he re-establishes his
communication with other men, he is no longer free. This it is that constitutes Kants
ethical dualism.
But what can and will this free man do after he has once cut himself loose from the
sensuous world? What will the free man do after he has found his freedom? Of course we
do not grant for a moment that he has ever found any true freedom. Kants ethics
constantly relate the moral life of man to the world of the sensuous as well as to the world
of freedom. Kants free man would be a blank to himself is he were really free in his own
sense of the term. He would be dead. He could make no choice between good and evil.
There would be for him no difference between good and evil.
But let us for the sake of the argument suppose that Kants free man has reached his
freedom. Then what will he do? But must he do something? Can he not merely twiddle
his thumbs? No, because his freedom is the freedom of act. Therein precisely his freedom
is to be found. Only in terms of act, argues Kant, can he escape the determinism involved
in all theoretical knowledge.
Now the result of the action of the free man, as conceived by Kant, are before us in
his ethical Writings. This result is a new heaven and a new earth on which righteousness
shall dwell. It is the kingdom of ends in which all true human beings are true persons and
as such regard all other human beings as true persons. And a society composed
exclusively of such free men, of such good men, deserves to be completely happy. So the
free man of Kant constructs a god to whom he ascribes almighty power as well as
absolute wisdom and goodness. This God will follow the instructions given him by the
free man and will see to it that the condition of all men will eventually be what it ought to
be, that is, what good men deserve.
It is thus that the ethical dualism of Kant is replaced by his ethical monism. This
ethical monism signifies, argues Kant, that the religious and moral values of men have
been preserved. It means that the world of nature, in spite of all the relentless
determinism that we see and know to be operative in it, will finally, somehow, because of
the imperative of the free man, be subject to the spiritual interests of good men. It means
that the last enemy which is death will be swallowed up in victory. The free mans
predicament, due to the fact that he is involved in the realm of the sensuous and therefore
to that extent not really free, is completely solved. The radical evil, somehow proceeding
from the free man who is good so far as he is free, has been overcome. The free man has
projected a God as his father, a Christ as his substitute and a Holy Spirit as his
regenerator. Thus he has raised himself from the dead and behold, he lives for evermore!
The free man has sent his Christ before him in order to prepare a home with many
mansions, goodly mansions, enough for all good men. Carnells decent society is but a
reflection of Kants kingdom of ends.
Shall we look at this primacy of the ethical as merely an innocent utopia? Scripture
does not speak of such utopias as being innocent. It speaks of the men who make them as
desperately wicked. Is not the whole utopian dream based on the assumption that man is
not a creature and is not a sinner? Is not the whole dream based on the idea that Christ is
not the redeemer of men? Is not this dream like unto that of the Pharisees when they
rejected Jesus the Christ through whom alone they themselves could be set free from sin,
as standing in their way while they marched on to the fulfilment of their kingdom of the
Jews?
To sense more deeply that Kants kingdom of ends is a dream and at that a wicked
dream, we need only to look at him as he constructs it step by step.
(1) The Internalization of Sin
If Kants kingdom of ends is to be realized, then it is first of all necessary to remove
the biblical idea of sin. And the method of removal is that of internalization. The biblical
narrative with respect to the origin of sin must be dehistorized, that is, demythologized.
What does it mean when the apostle says that all men are under sin and that none are
righteous? Is this not true? Of course it is true. But it is true only if it is internalized. We
can speak of the origin of sin or evil, says Kant, either as an origin in reason or as an
origin in time.9 Of course Kant chooses for the idea that sin has its origin in reason
rather than in time. If an effect is referred to a cause to which it is bound under the laws
of freedom, as it true in the case of moral evil, then the determination of the will to the
production of this effect is conceived of as bound up with its determining ground not in
time but merely in rational representation; such an effect cannot be derived from any
preceding state whatsoever. 10
And why is it of absolute importance that we do not find the origin of evil in time?
The answer for Kant is that to do so would be to find it in nature. And nature is the field
of natural causes. Evil must spring from man as free. It would be a contradiction to say
that sin had its origin in time.
9 Kant, Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone, Chicago: The Open Court Publishing
Company, 1934, p. 34.
10 Ibid., p. 35.
When we think of any individual man today, we must not think of his sins as
springing from something historically inherited. Of all the explanations of the spread and
propagation of evil among men, the most inept is that which describes it as descending
to us as an inheritance from our first parents.11 Evil must be traced to the will of each
man. And this will is free in the sense of not being determined by natural causes.
Therefore In the search for the rational origin of evil actions, every such action must be
regarded as though the individual had fallen into it directly from a state of innocence. For
whatever his previous deportment may have been, whatever natural causes may have
been influencing him, and whether these causes were to be found within him or outside
him, his action is yet free and determined by none of these causes; hence it can and must
always be judged as an original use of his will. 12
Each man is, so to speak, his own Adam. But then Adam must not be thought of as
the first man of history and he must not be thought of as having sinned against a
commandment of God that came to him from without. That is, we must not take the
Genesis account, which says that God spoke to Adam with respect to the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, as being historical. To regard it as such would be to make
the arbitrary will of God the source of the distinction between good and evil. Man must
not even be thought of as being created by God so that his sense of the difference
between good and evil is placed within him by God. That would still be heteronomy. And
the world about man must in no sense be thought of as created by God and as being a fit
vehicle through which God makes known his will to man. How could the eating or not
eating of the fruit of a tree, an object in the realm of nature, ever have any moral
significance for the free man?
Kant speaks a great deal about the categorical imperative. Man, he says, is good only
if he has a good will. That is to say, he is good only if his heart is pure. And his heart is
pure only if he does what he does because he sees it to be his duty to do it. If he did
something because he was promised a reward for doing it, or if he refrained from doing
something because he was threatened by God with punishment for doing it, then his
motive would not be pure. His motive is pure only when the good he does is from respect
for the moral law as such.
It should be noted especially that if the good will is to be good for Kant, then the law
that issues its command must not be taken to be the law of God in the Christian sense of
the term.
In referring to the categorical imperative Kant often speaks of it as standing above
man. But he is sure that it must not rest in God. If it is spoken of as the law of Godand
Kant is quite willing to speak of it in this waythen it must be made plain that the god
whose will is expressed in the law is himself a construct of the moral consciousness of
man. For Kant the moral law, for all practical purposes, is the law that the moral man
proposes to himself. This means, of course, that this law is equivalent to the idea that the
self-sufficient moral man sets as an ideal of permanent moral order for himself. He
further expects that all other moral men will do likewise. Then they and he together can
form the kingdom of ends.
Even though Kant is outspoken on the fact that the whole moral transaction is internal
to the free man, independent of and above the realm of nature, he says that his view
11 Idem.
12 Ibid., p. 36.
accords well with that of Scripture.13 And having said this, then the process of
allegorization makes its beginning. Hordern and DeWolf have learned their lesson well
from Kant on this point.
Let us look for a moment at Kants charge against those who hold to that most inept
of all explanations of evil by tracing it back to an actual event in time. The charge is that
this is contradictory. An act cannot be both determined and free at the same time and in
the same respect. Is it someone who knows the nature of reality exhaustively that is
speaking here? Of course not. Is it even a rationalist who at least claims that the order of
nature is the same as the order of ideas who is speaking here? No, Kant is no Spinozist.
He has repudiated that sort of rationalism. And he has repudiated it in the name of the
idea of pure contingency. The activity of the intellect, he argues, is fruitless unless it
considers itself as purely formal and as operating in correlativity with pure contingency.
Yet now he argues against the idea of an historical origin of evil as though he were as
pure a rationalist as was Spinoza. He is saying, in effect, that man cannot be responsible
in relation to the laws of the created world if these are thought of as ordained by God.
It is useless to object at this point and say that Kant is using the law of contradiction
only in a negative way. For, even by this supposedly negative use, he is in effect asserting
in a priori fashion that reality cannot be of such and such a nature.
Moreover, what is the foundation on which Kant stands when he makes the assertion
that the origin of sin cannot be historical? He says it is on the basis of his experience of
freedom that he stands. But this freedom, as earlier noted, is itself an intellectual
construct. It is the fruit of the operation of the same law of contradiction and of the same
negative use of that law that he now applies to the idea of the temporal origin of sin. By
that operation he found that freedom was at least possible. And he found it necessary
because the opposite was contradictory. In other words, his idea of freedom is the product
as well as the source of his intellectualistic efforts. These efforts are therefore assumed to
be legislative for the nature of intelligible reality. And by that token Kants own notion of
freedom, to be known as such, must be wholly determined and therefore not free. This is
not to say merely that Kants own position is against the law of contradiction. It is not
merely to say that it is self-contradictory. It is rather to say that on his position the law of
contradiction can have no application to reality at all.
Kant himself admits that there is, on his view, no conceivable ground from which the
moral evil in us could originally have come.14 When he says this, he is giving us the
moral equivalent of the idea of pure contingency in the realm of nature. But to compound
contingency with abstract universality, whether in the realm of nature or in that of
morality, is not merely to court but to embrace disaster. In appealing to the rational
man, the moral man, the axioms of a decent society and indiscriminate love
Carnell throws the Christian story into the dilemma of the modern Moloch, as it has been
built by Kant and as worshiped by Hordern and DeWolf.
This modern Moloch is the only alternative to accepting the biblical narrative with
respect to the origin of sin as historical. Not that the Christian position can explain this
origin. Christianity does not pretend to explain the origin of sin any more than it pretends
to explain the possibility of responsibility of man in the framework of the plan of God
presented in Scripture. The Christian accepts his entire view of things on authority. But
13 Idem.
14 Ibid., p. 38.
he knows that those who are unwilling to live by this authority have nothing on which to
stand when they oppose it. And he knows that the intellect of man needs to stand on the
foundation of Christian teaching if it is not to be isolated from all factuality. In other
words, it is only when the power of the intellect, the logical function, is surrounded with
the facts of the universe as created and controlled by God, that it can operate at all. This
operation will then consist in finding as much order in the created universe as is possible
for man as the image of God to find. But this operation will then not assume the
legislative power of the intellect, and in so doing end up with crucifying the intellect
itself. In short, Kants objection to the historical origin of sin has to stand upon the notion
of a freedom which is purely negative and is therefore nowhere to be found. Secondly,
this objection has to assume the legislative power of the human intellect as much as any
determinist has even done. Thirdly, Kant has to admit the failure of his intellect in trying
to reach its goal because of the fact of pure contingency. That is to say, Kants supposed
advance upon earlier forms of philosophy is found merely in the fact that he has
combined an abstract rationalism such as that of Parmenides or Spinoza with that of an
equally abstract brute factualism such as that of the most extreme process philosophers of
history. This is all that anyone who does not start his thinking on the presupposition of the
God of Christianity and his revelation through Christ speaking in Scripture can do. All
men do their thinking on the basis of a position accepted by faith. If your faith is not one
which has God in Christ speaking infallibly in Scripture for its object, then your faith is
in man as autonomous. All of ones reasoning is controlled by either of these
presuppositions.
When therefore Kant objects to a historical origin of sin, he is merely applying to the
question of evil the methodology involved in his assumption of human autonomy. He is
bravely rejecting the Christian view because he finds it to be contradictory. But he
himself has to fall back on an utterly irrationalist notion of the foundation for rational
activity. Only if one presupposes God as the one in whom rationality and being are
coterminous and coextensive can he use the laws of logic at all. And if he does this, he
knows better than to attempt to determine what is possible or impossible in reality by
means of these laws. The Christian has a God whom he as a creature cannot fully
comprehend. God says I am and is able to fully justify this assertion. He is able to make it
stand because only on the basis of this assertion does the thinking and willing activity of
man have any possible meaning at all. The Christian gladly accepts the idea that he
cannot logically penetrate the idea of mans responsibility and his place in the plan of
God. But Kant has brought God as well as himself down into utter darkness. He has no
foundation on which he can make any assertion stand.
(2) The Internalization of Grace
In what has just been said, the pattern of Kants dealings with the teachings of
Christianity was set. Every fact or doctrine of Christianity must be internalized. The idea
of redemption as well as the sin of man must be internalized, that is, demythologized.
This holds for what Christ has done for us in his death and resurrection as well as for
what his Holy Spirit does within us in regenerating us and giving us faith. In other words,
the whole of mans sin and his redemption from sin is assumed to be an exclusively
internal affair, an affair internal to man as self-sufficient. Of course, as always, Kant is
driven to think of the free man as, in spite of his freedom, involved in the realm of the
sensuous. And so his redemption must to that extent be redemption or release from the
sensuous. But strictly speaking the free man is free precisely because he is wholly distinct
from the sensuous. Therefore he is already saved by virtue of his existence as free, and
his redemption is a tautological assertion of his autonomy. And this assertion is the basis
for his repeated opposition to everything historical in connections with redemption. Man
himself must make or have made himself into whatever, in a moral sense, whether good
or evil, he is or is to become. Either condition must be an effect of his free choice; for
otherwise he could not be held responsible for it and could therefore be morally neither
good nor evil. 15
Of course, as the origin of evil for Kant is a mystery, so the origin of mans escape
from it is also a mystery. How it is possible for a naturally evil man to make himself a
good man wholly surpasses our comprehension; for how can a bad tree bring forth good
fruit?16 The only thing that Kant can fall back on in explanation for the origination of
goodness in an evil man is the presupposition that throughout a seed of goodness still
remains in its entire purity, incapable of being extirpated or corrupted.17 The
restoration of the original predisposition to good in us is therefore not the acquiring of a
lost incentive for good, for the incentive which consists in respect for the moral law we
have never been able to lose, and were such a thing possible, we could never get it
again.18 It is the moral law that commands us to be better men. And when the moral law
commands that we ought now to be better men, it follows inevitably that we must be able
to be better men. 19
It is thus that Kant internalizes the works of grace. The idea of an historical origin
of grace is as little acceptable to Kant as is the idea of the historical origin of sin. In other
words, the entire story of sin and redemption as told in Scripture is acceptable as long as
it is wholly internalized. Kant has no objection at all even to the idea of the miraculous so
long as miracles are, in due time, internalized. For it bespeaks a culpable degree of
moral unbelief not to acknowledge as completely authoritative the commands of duty.
20 Did not Jesus teach this internalist view of grace when he upbraided those that
wanted to see signs and miracles if they were to believe?21 And Kant has no objection at
all to the idea of a church dispensing the means of grace if only these means of grace are
used to help men in the process of their internal self-improvement.
(3) Kants Summum Bonum
It is therefore by the process of internalization that Kant is able and glad to make use
of all Christian teaching. But by this internalizing process he expects at last to accomplish
something of an external nature. He expects to be able to establish an equivalent of the
new heaven and the new earth of the Christian religion. And this must be not only in the
realm of freedom but also in that of nature. The question now is how Kant accomplishes
that miracle. Obviously it is by a tour de force, by a miracle such as Christians could
never accept, a miracle of the idea of pure form not only coming into contact with but
changing the realm of nature into a paradise for the good man.
15 Ibid., p. 40.
16 Idem.
17 Ibid., p. 41.
18 Ibid., p. 42.
19 Ibid., p. 46.
20 Ibid., p. 79.
21 Idem.
3. Christian Methodology
Earlier in this chapter, we have spoken of a truly Christological and biblical
methodology. This method, we argued, is involved in, as it is a part of, the Christian
message. The Christian message must not be bruised in the machinery of a non-Christian
methodology. How can this be prevented? It can be prevented only if the fruitfulness of
the method employed is seen to rest upon the message it is the means of bringing, and
only if it is made clear that any form of non-Christian methodology is self-frustrating.
A. The Self-Authenticating Christ
If then the Christian seeks to bring the Christian story to men, he must point out to
them that unless this story be what it claims to be then there is no answer to the question
how men can learn anything in any field of interest. We have heard Henry say that in his
book on Apologetics Carnell presents the Biblical view of God and the world, as alone
to resolve the dilemmas of the modern mood. In reality, Carnell has done no such thing.
He has merely presented Christianity as the best hypothesis the rational man may use in
seeking systematic consistency for himself. Nowhere does Carnell evaluate the
rational man and his method of systematic consistency in terms of the self-
authenticating Christ. Carnell sets the rational man as judge over the Christ. He should
have set Christ as the judge over his rational man.
The Christian story centers about Jesus Christ who said: I am the way, the truth and
the life. As Christians we accept these words on his authority.
We accept these words of Christ as they come to us by way of the Scriptures of the
Old and New Testaments. The words Christ says and the Bible says have, for us,
essentially the same import.
When Christ says that he is the way, the truth, and the life, he addresses us as sinners.
As such, we are blind and hard of heart. The heart is deceitful above all things, and
desperately wicked: who can know it (Jer 17:9)? The answer is that Christ knows our
hearts; that he bore the penalty of eternal death due us for our sin, by taking our place on
the cross; that he arose from the grave for our justification; and that he gave us his Spirit
who takes the things of Christ and gives them unto us.
I know that the Father has sent him (Jn 3:16) to save me and that the Father has given
me to him. All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I
will in no wise cast out (Jn 6:37).
I know that I belong to my faithful Saviour with body and soul. When he returns in
glory he, my Saviour, will change my vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his
glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto
himself (Phil 3:21).
I know too that Christ came to save his people from their sins. Christ came to save his
church. So I am saved as a member of his church.
Still further I know that Christ saved and saves his church, his people, that they may
be a blessing to the world. The promise was to Abraham, that through him and through
his seed all nations should be blessed. And Christ is the seed of Abraham. Now to
Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many;
but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ (Gal 3:16). For God sent not his Son into
the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved (Jn
3:17).
And it is the world that will be saved. Satan and all the powers of hell cannot prevail
against the kingdom of heaven that Christ established and is establishing. Having finished
his work on earth, our Saviour said to his disciples: All power is given unto me in
heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of
the Father, and of the Holy Ghost; Teaching them to observe whatsoever I have
commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen
(Mt 28:20).
To be sure, there are those who will not enter into the kingdom of heaven because of
their unbelief. Said Jesus: He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in
me, and I in him (Jn 6:56). But Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that
believed not, and who should betray him (Jn 6:64). Jesus also knew that those that
believe not are blinded by the god of this world. Says Paul, speaking for his Lord: But if
our gospel be hid, it is hid in them that are lost: In whom the god of this world hath
blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of
Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them (2 Cor 4:34). Finally, Jesus
knows that they who believe do so by the grace of God and not because they are in
themselves in any wise different from other men. All men are, as sinners, blind and hard
of heart. Speaking of believers, Paul says: Among whom also we all had our
conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of
the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others (Eph 2:3).
The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are
foolishness unto him: neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned (1
Cor 2:14).
Faith is the gift of God. Those who believe have been born from above, born of God,
born again unto knowledge. Astounded at the unbelief of those who saw him, heard him,
and watched him perform his miracles, Jesus said: Therefore said I unto you, that no one
can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father (Jn 6:65).
It is this Christian story that is alone able to resolve the dilemmas of the modern
mood. The dilemmas of the modern mood are the false dilemmas of all non-Christian
thought. And all these dilemmas reduce to one. They are all based on the assumption that
man is the ultimate reference point in all his interpretation. It is the would-be self-
sufficient, this would-be autonomous man that sets himself up as judge above the claims
of the self-authenticating Christ. The one issue that lies back of all other issues is that
between the self-authenticating man and the self-authenticating Christ.
(1) Faith and Reason
There is a life and death struggle between these two. There is first the civitas Dei. Its
citizens have given their hearts to the selfauthenticating Christ. In him they find their
answer to all their problems, both intellectual and moral. Then there is, second, the
civitas terrena. Its citizens have given their hearts to the self-authenticating man. In him
they seek, though they never find, the answers to all their problems, both intellectual and
moral. There is a whole-souled commitment in both cases. The argument between them is
utterly existential.
The self-authenticating man has various disguises. He will appear as the rational
man and demand that the Christian story must make peace with the laws of logic, as
these are based on his vision of Goodness above God and man. He will appear as the
moral man and demand that the Christian story make peace with the laws of morality,
as these are based on his vision of Goodness above God and man. He will appear as the
scientific man and demand that the Christian story must make peace with the facts of
science. For these facts must be what the vision of the self-authenticating man says they
can be. But in whatever guise he may appear, the self-authenticating man assumes that he
is to be the judge. The vision originates with him. In his eyes he is the judge of the
supreme court. All questions of law and of fact must be settled by him. He alone knows
what they can or cannot be. According to his vision, the Christian story cannot be true.
And his judgment is final. There is no repeal from his decision. How could there be? The
self-authenticating man virtually takes the place that Christ has in the Christian religion.
But where is the constitution by which even the chief judge of the supreme court must
judge? The answer is that this constitution has been written by the chief judge himself.
There are no founding fathers who based the constitution on the laws of God that they
found impressed upon the world and themselves by their creator-redeemer. According to
the vision of the self-authenticating man, the world is not and cannot be created and
controlled by God. If he finds anything, it is pure contingency, pure chaos, that he
finds. But he does not really find anything. He always makes as he finds. He moulds
his material as he goes. He has made sure that this material contains no lumps. The
material must be utterly pliable; hence the need of pure contingency. In particular, he
makes sure that the Christian story cannot be true. He could not manipulate the Christian
story without its breaking his machinery. The raw stuff of experience must be finer than
the finest powder.
The self-authenticating man appears, at first glance, to be very modest. Has he not
limited reason in order to make room for faith? Does he not disclaim all territorial
ambition beyond the world of phenomena? Has he not even given up his own youthful
ambition of controlling all reality by logic? Is he not restricting the use of the law of
contradiction to the merely negative function of protecting his own borders?
The answer to such questions as these must be that the self-authenticating man cannot
be modest. His vision is always the same. In this vision, he sees himself as God. He sees
himself as alone able to determine what can be and what cannot be. He is, according to
his vision, the source of all possibility. Even when, speaking through Kant, he limits
reason to make room for faith, he first makes sure that the object of this faith cannot be
the Christian story. Kant keeps the God of Christianity out of his noumenal as well as out
of his phenomenal realm. Actually he could not do the one without at the same time
doing the other. To make room for his own faith, the self-authenticating man must
remove the Christian faith.
Thus, the reason of the self-authenticating man is the willing servant of the faith of
the self-authenticating man. So far as he sincerely thinks that he is open-minded and
therefore ready to follow the facts wheresoever they may lead him, he is self-deceived.
He assumes that pure contingency or change is the matrix of all the material of all
possible knowledge. He takes for granted that the facts to which he is about to apply his
hypotheses cannot have been created by God and cannot be controlled by God. He thinks
that the very possibility of progress in scientific knowledge requires the exclusion by
assumption of the whole Christian story. The self-authenticating man assumes that only in
terms of his totality-vision can law and fact come into fruitful union with one another.
It appears then that if there is to be any intelligible encounter between the Christian
and the non-Christian, it must be in terms of the two mutually exclusive visions that each
entertains. To appeal to the law of contradiction and/or to facts or to a combination of
these apart from the relation that these sustain to the totality-vision of either, the believer
or the unbeliever, is to beat the air. It is well to say that he who would reason must
presuppose the validity of the laws of logic. But if we say nothing more basic than this,
then we are still beating the air. The ultimate question deals with the foundation of the
validity of the laws of logic. We have not reached bottom until we have seen that every
logical activity in which any man engages is in the service of his totality-vision.
It is also well to say that we must follow the facts wheresoever they may lead us. But
again we should note that all research into the realm of fact, on the part of any man, is in
the service of his totality-vision. The self-authenticating man assumes that if the Christian
story were true, then the scientific enterprise would be meaningless. Free scientific
inquiry, he assumes, requires that there be no pre-interpretation of facts in terms of the
Christian story. On the other hand, the Christian holds that the idea of free scientific
inquiry is unintelligible except upon the presupposition of the truth of the Christian story.
When Carnell seeks to defend the Christian story by showing that it is in accord with
the law of contradiction and that it is in accord with the facts as such, he is, apparently,
unconscious of the fact that he is virtually admitting that the Christian story, to be true,
must be true in terms of the vision of the self-authenticating man. And in that case it
would not be true. One could wish that Carnell had been true to his deepest convictions.
He would then have challenged the vision of the self-authenticating man in terms of
the vision of the redeemed man. He would then have shown that on Aristotles view the
laws of logic are suspended in midair. Aristotle sought to escape the position of those
who, like Parmenides, assume that logic wholly controls the realm of fact. On that basis,
Aristotle saw, one must hold that man is omniscient. And man can be omniscient only if
all the facts that can possibly exist even in the future, are already known to him. Man
must then not only be the infallible interpreter of the facts as they come to him, but he
must think himself infallible because no fact can come to him which is not what he has in
advance said that it must be.
But how shall we escape these definition-mongers? The only answer that Aristotle
knows is to introduce the notion of brute facts, of pure contingency. Brute facts are non-
created, self-existent facts. They are such facts as cannot tell the Christian story.
The significance of this point can scarcely be over-estimated. Aristotle agrees with the
Parmenidean-Platonic view that knowledge is of universals only. We suppose ourselves
to possess unqualified, scientific knowledge of a thing, as opposed to knowing it in the
accidental way in which the Sophist knows, when we think that we know the cause on
which the fact depends, as the cause of that fact and of no other, and, further, that the fact
could not be other than it is. 22
Here the self-authenticating man clearly assumes that there cannot be a God such as
the Christian story tells about. The person speaking in this fashion takes for granted that
there is no mind more ultimate than itself. On this basis there cannot be any such thing as
revelation on the part of God to man. Aristotle assumes that if man knows anything, he
knows its essence exhaustively.
Aristotle also sees that on this view of human knowledge one must, to be consistent,
deny the reality of the world of time and change. Parmenides did this very thing. Plato
22 The Students Oxford Aristotle, London, 1942, Vol. 1 Logic, Analytica Posteriora,
Book 1, 71b.
was not quite willing to do it. And Aristotle is even less willing to do this than was Plato.
He saw clearly that knowledge must, somehow, involve the idea of learning something
new about the changing scene of life. Men want to know the why of things that come to
be and pass away. They are interested in having knowledge with respect to every kind of
physical change. 23
If Aristotles definition of knowledge is to stand, then new things that come to be and
pass away cannot be created and controlled by the God Of the Christian story. For
Aristotle, human knowledge is absolute knowledge. It is knowledge which penetrates the
innermost essence of a thing. There cannot be a god who has any higher or deeper
knowledge than that. To know the innermost essence of any one thing, one must know the
innermost essence of every other thing that may possibly have an effect or bearing on this
one thing. So the newness that Aristotle looks for in order to explain the process of the
increase of knowledge must be the newness of pure contingency or Chance. And this is
precisely the newness Aristotle introduces. But chance also and spontaneity are
reckoned among causes: many things are said both to be and to come to be as a result of
chance and spontaneity. 24
But now the grin on the face of the Sophist begins to appear. Aristotle had spurned
him. He said he was no better than a plant. If only he would lay claim to making a single
intelligible statement about even one fact! He would then show him that absolute
knowledge is already presupposed in such a statement. But now Aristotle has himself
been forced to admit pure contingency into his system. What then remains of his boast to
the effect that the position of the Sophists refutes itself?
Aristotle makes a desperate effort to escape from the pure rationalism and
determinism of the definition-mongers. He is right in doing so. For, on their basis, all
coming to be and passing away is unreal and therefore unknowable. On their basis, the
knowing subject is absorbed into an abstract principle of being. But in running away from
the rationalistic determinism of the Parmenidean point of view, he runs right into the
camp of the Sophists. That is the only place where, on his own view, newness can be
found. Then when the Sophists ridicule him, even as they welcome him, he hastens to
seek escape from their domain. He realizes that chance is unstable, as none of the things
which result from it can be invariable or normal.25 But in vain he seeks to inquire what
chance and spontaneity are,26 for if he could know what they are, they would no longer
be what they are. They would then be normal, i.e., wholly known objects of knowledge.
The whole of Aristotles tremendous effort in his various works is expanded in trying
to make sense of the idea that man, on the one hand, has absolute knowledge and, on the
other hand, has no knowledge at all. Aristotle was trying to solve the Meno problem, but
could not solve it. How is mans own learning by experience to be made intelligible to
himself? It cannot be done by pure rationalism. It cannot be done by pure irrationalism. It
cannot be done by overlapping pure rationalism with pure irrationalism, Aristotles best
efforts and his great vision, notwithstanding.
Why did not Carnell point out this fact? Why did he ask us to make peace with the
law of contradiction as Aristotle set it forth? Why did he not point out that when the law
23 Ibid., Vol. 2, Natural Philosophy, Book 2:3.
24 Ibid., Vol. 2, Natural Philosophy, Book 2:3.
25 Ibid., p. 197a.
26 Ibid., p. 196b.
of contradiction is applied in terms of Aristotles vision, this law swallows up not only all
the objects of mans knowledge but himself as the knower of those objects as well?
Why did not Carnell point out that in terms of Aristotles vision all the changing facts of
changing human experience are not merely unknown but unknowable?
To be sure, in the progress of hie thought, Carnell toned down the requirements of
logic. In some of his later writings he describes the law of contradiction as having a
negative rather than a positive function. But this does not help matters at all. Kants
theory of knowledge and being is a modern, as Aristotles was an ancient, form of
combination of abstract formal logic applied to purely contingent material. Kant, as well
as Aristotle has his totality-vision. And in his case, as well as in that of Aristotle, this
vision is that of the self-authenticating man. This is far more obviously so in the case of
Kant than in the case of Aristotle. The principle of inwardness and self-sufficiency that is
inherent in the notion of the self-authenticating man finds its most overt expression in
Kant and his followers.
Kant has given up appealing to any form of objectivity such as the Greeks had. He
openly asserts that any final unity between fact and law must have its source in man as its
source. To get unity in the field of science, argues Kant, man must press the categories of
himself as the knowing subject on the raw stuff of experience. But man cannot cover all
the raw stuff that surrounds him. Pure contingency is like a bottomless and shoreless
ocean. Yet no knowledge is really knowledge so long as it is threatened by pure
contingency. So Kant needs the idea of an absolute God. But he must not know such a
God. Kant, even more so than Aristotle, fears the definition-mongers. To keep from going
about in circles with Spinoza, the modern equivalent of Parmenides, Kant introduces
contingency with a vengeance. But then to keep from getting lost in pure contingency,
Kant has to flee back to Spinoza.
Kants vision is one in which scientific progress is intelligible, while yet the whole
scientific enterprise is subservient to the moral and religious ideals of a kingdom of love.
This kingdom of love is a kingdom in which the self-authenticating man loves himself
above all else and all others like himself.
But Kants vision is a mirage. And in terms of his vision the Meno question still
remains unsolved. If you have a bottomless sea of Chance, and if you, as an individual,
are but a bit of chance, by chance distinguished from other bits of chance and if the law
of contradiction has by chance grown within you, the imposition of this law on your
environment is, granted it could take place, a perfectly futile activity. To speak of limiting
reason so as to make room for faith is meaningless unless the activity of reason be first
shown to be intelligible. And this cannot be done on any basis short of the Christian story.
When Paul was confronted with the consummation of Greek thought, he challenged
its wisdom in the name of the Christ, whom he met on the way to Damascus. And this
Christ was the one who died and rose again from the dead, outside the gates of Jerusalem.
We cannot do less than did Paul. We dare not curry favor with the self-authenticating
man. We dare not claim that the Christian story is in accordance with logic and in
accordance with fact in terms of the vision of the self-authenticating man. We must
rather call him to repentance. We must insist on his unconditional surrender to the self-
authenticating Christ. But we must do that in the interest of his finding himself, of his
finding meaning in science, in morality, and in religion. We must do that in the interest of
his participation in the victory of the all-conquering Christ.
(2) The Nature of Revelation
When Hordern sets forth the main tenets of his New Reformation theology, he speaks
of the need of holding to the transcendence of God. God in his freedom chooses when
and where he will be made known.27 Involved in this freedom of God is the
Reformation doctrine of salvation by grace. And immediately connected with this
Protestant doctrine of salvation by grace, he says, is that of sola scriptura.28 In Scripture,
God himself tells us what he has done for sinners.
Still further, Hordern finds that with God thus taking the initiative in the salvation of
man, the latter finds that his reason which could not take man to God, is now liberated in
the service of God. 29
These are indeed Reformation words. But when, in fairness to Hordern, we take them
in the total framework of his thought, they have lost all Reformation meaning. For in
fairness to Hordern, we must not identify his totality view with any such view of God and
his revelation as would identify it with anything that happened in history.
Hordern wants to be a kerygmatic rather than a philosophical theologian. In this
respect, he sides with Barth as over against such men as Paul Tillich. Even so, when
Hordern reaches the point where he describes the nature of the revelation he believes in,
his description involves the complete capitulation to the self-authenticating man of the
modern freedom-nature scheme.
To make certain that his view of revelation and the primacy of faith will be acceptable
to the self-authenticating man he, first of all, disavows every taint of fundamentalism.
Not for all the world would a kerygmatic theologian believe something about God
because the Bible says so. The New Reformation theology is no fideism. It does not
operate with credentia.30 Following Barth, Hordern does not call us to swallow some set
of doctrines or conclusions.31 Barth witnesses to the fact that God is made known to
man through faith.32 Knowledge of God has to be given us, for we never possess it
within ourselves.33 Logic tells us nothing by analogy.34 With Barth we need the
analogy of faith.35 Faith implies both fides, a cognitive relationship, and fiducia, a
trustful decision to commit oneself.36 The Christian faith is not something that goes
beyond what reason attains; it is a perspective within which reason works. 37
If now we glance at Horderns perspective or vision, we soon discover that it is, as
earlier noted, that of Kants primacy of the practical reason. Hordern seeks to maintain
the objectivity of revelation through Scripture.38 But this objectivity of revelation must
itself be expressed in the light of the new situation that we face because of historical
27 The Case for a New Reformation Theology, p. 19.

28 Ibid., p. 20.
29 Idem.
30 Ibid., p. 35.
31 Ibid., p. 36.
32 Idem.
33 Idem.
34 Ibid., p. 37.
35 Idem.
36 Ibid., p. 51.
37 Idem.
38 Ibid., p. 54.
criticism and modern thought in general.39 Cauda Venenum. In the tail, we find the sting.
Modern thought has taught Hordern what it has taught Kant. Modern thought has taught
Hordern that human knowledge, so far as it pertains to the world of space and time, is
composed of the imposition of abstract categories upon a bottomless shore of
contingency.
Not that Hordern has actually shown that science is intelligible in terms of a
combination of pure contingency and pure form, a combination effected by a man who is
himself composed of the same combination. Hordern merely assumes that Kant has
proved the intelligibility of scientific procedure. But Kant has not shown it and could not
show it. An abstract logic that would, if it could be applied to fact, kill fact, and purely
contingent matter that would, if it could be brought into contact with logic, lose its
contingency, cannot be brought into fruitful union.
A concept of the primacy of faith based on modern thought, as Hordern conceives
of it, requires the idea of a god who is wholly unknown and unknowable and at the same
time exhaustively known. Barth does not hesitate to accept the consequences of modern
thought for the idea of God and revelation. He does this by saying that in Christ God is
wholly known and at the same time wholly hidden. Hordern virtually accepts this
Barthian reinterpretation of the self-authenticating Christ of Scripture in terms of the self-
authenticating man. The result is that this Christ himself needs saving while yet he cannot
be saved. The result is that both faith and reason must operate in a vacuum. It is not he
who believes in the self-authenticating Christ, but he who, with Hordern, does not believe
in him whose position is reducible to absurdity. With the help of modern thought,
Hordern hopes to escape the fantastic position of those who believe that Christ speaks
directly in the Bible. He thinks that on this view each reader of the Bible becomes a
pope who can interpret infallibly.40 Yet the followers of the self-authenticating Christ
always disclaim infallible interpretation. They merely claim that the Son of God has
actually come into history and has, through his spirit, actually explained the meaning of
his person and work for the salvation of man and given it to his church in the Scriptures.
The followers of this Christ, sinful and finite as they are, cannot produce in the best of
their creeds an infallible interpretation of the Word of Christ. More than that, if the
followers of Christ did have an infallible interpretation of Christ, it would be because
they did not differ from Christ. In that case they would not need Christ. Christ could do
nothing for them.
But this virtual identity of all men with Christ, which Hordern, in effect, ascribes to
the traditional believer in Christ, is what he, really assumes in his own view. Hordern
simply does not realize that anyone can think otherwise than on the assumption that if
something is known by man, it must be known exhaustively. It is this rationalist-
determinist assumption that keeps him from formulating any view of the nature of
revelation except such as stands as wholly irrational over against what is known by man.
And it is this same rationalist-determinist assumption that keeps him from bringing his
God of pure contingencyhe calls it transcendenceinto contact with the world of
history without forthwith destroying his identity and the uniqueness of his person and
work. On the perspective or vision of modern thought, mans activity of reason rests on
39 Idem.
40 Ibid., p. 57.
his faith in himself as ultimate. Man sins against himself and saves himself from this sin
against himself by projecting a Christ from himself as he revolves upon himself.
It is the self-authenticating Christ who in mercy saves us from such meaningless
gyrations within ourselves. He shows us that in all our efforts as ultimate self-interpreters
we are actually opposing the salvation that he offers. Every bit of supposedly impersonal
and neutral investigation, even in the field of science, is the product of an attitude of
spiritual hostility to the Christ through whom alone there is truth in any dimension.
(3) Who is the Fanatic?
Finally comes the question of criterion or standard. If Hordern reinterprets the
Reformation in terms of modern thought when he deals with faith and reason or with
the nature of revelation, we can scarcely expect him to do anything else when he deals
with the question of criterion. He thinks of the traditional view of revelation as directly
found in Scripture as a fantastic One.
Hordern warns us against following the first fanatic we meet. Let not the
fundamentalist think that because the New Reformation theology is against a priori
thinking about God, it is ready to return to a position of one who says, The Bible says
so and if you do not believe the Bible you make God a liar. Let not the fundamentalist
think that because Hordern is willing to speak of the self-authenticating character of
revelation that he has given up critical thinking.41 Critical thinking must always be
the final judge of the claims of revelation. Without the help of critical thinking, we
would soon, with Alice in Wonderland, be able to believe six impossible things before
breakfast. 42
Traditional apologetics thought of the question whether God exists as being
analogous to the question, Are there cookies in the jar in the cupboard?43 But now that
we have the ultimate perspective given us by KantHordern speaks of Godnow we
know that revelation cannot be identical with any such propositions with respect to
Christ as are found in Scripture. We must start by saying that in the phenomenal world no
revelation can be identified as such. God must be wholly unknown or we do not know
him at all.
From all this, it is clear that Hordern has no self-authenticating revelation at all
because he has no revelation at all. His God is by definition wholly unknowable. And
when, mirabile dictu, he becomes known, he is wholly known and always has been
wholly known. Why will not Hordern see that he is in no position to look with scorn upon
the traditional view of revelation and of its self-authenticating character. Hordern has to
place his guns on water without bottom as he seeks to shoot at the fantastic position of
those who say The Bible says so. In fact, if the revelation of God were not what Calvin
indicates it to be, always and everywhere present to man and always pressing upon him,
then Hordern could not even find a plausible argument for opposing it. Horderns
opposition to the traditional view of the self-authenticating character of revelation
presupposes its truth.
There is no need now to discuss DeWolfs views on (a) faith and reason, (b) the
nature of revelation, and (c) the question of criterion. It has earlier been shown that
DeWolfs methodology does not differ basically from that of Hordern.
41 Ibid., p. 89.
42 Ibid., p. 93.
43 Ibid., p. 98.
What we must lament once more is the fact that Carnell did not point out that the
wisdom of man has been made foolishness with God.
By forsaking him who is the way, the truth, and the life the world strangles itself.
Its method is fatal to the entire enterprise of human interpretation. How then may the
world be saved? Only by adopting the method that is involved in the Christian story. It
is this that Christians must tell the world. They must offer Christ as the way, the only way
by which men may be saved. To offer Christ as the way is to call men to repentance. It is
sin to seek for truth anywhere without seeking it through Christ as the only way. The
wrath of God rests upon us if, in seeking truth, we ignore and reject him who alone is
truth. The search for truth is an existential matter. Ones attitude toward Christ is always
involved. Our every thought in science, in philosophy, and in theology must be made
captive to the obedience of Christ.
(4) The Conquering Christ
The ultimate source of truth in any field rests in him. The world may discover much
truth without owning Christ as Truth. Christ upholds even those who ignore, deny, and
oppose him. A little child may slap his father in the face, but it can do so only because the
father holds it on his knee. So modern science, modern philosophy, and modern theology
may discover much truth. Nevertheless, if the universe were not created and redeemed by
Christ no man could give himself an intelligible account of anything. It follows that in
order to perform their task aright the scientist and the philosopher as well as the
theologian need Christ.
It is man with all his cultural interests and tasks who needs the Christ. But Christ, the
Saviour of the world, wants to be accepted as the Lord of men. Men do not accept him at
all for what he is unless they accept him as such. For men cannot accept him as Lord
except by grace they receive the desire to do so. No one comes to the Father except
through the Son and no one can come to the Son except the Father draw him.
So long as we do not dare to tell the natural man this fact we have not really
brought the Christ to him. Unless we do this we have not really offered the world what it
most desperately needs. The world by its wisdom knows not God and not knowing God it
knows not the world. If then Christians are to be of help to the world even in the field of
science, of philosophy as well as in the field of theology, they must confront men with
Christ.
In Christ alone the Meno problem has been solved. In Christ alone human experience
becomes intelligible.
If there is a case for Calvinism, it is only in so far as it presents the Christ of the
Scriptures to men as the Saviour and Lord in every field of human endeavor. Every
individual Calvinist should be the first to admit that he himself falls far short of doing
this as he ought. He should, therefore, always repent of his own sins before calling on
others, Conservatives perhaps, to join him in presenting Christ to the world without
compromise. Christians have no ready answers, no easy solutions, to the many problems
of the scientist, the philosopher, and the theologian. Christians are not wiser than are
other men. They have no information that is not available to other men. But by grace they
have learned to see that the self-authenticating Christ is the presupposition for the
intelligibility of the scientific, the philosophical, and the theological enterprise. No one
has shown how learning by experience is possible by any other method than that which
presupposes man and his universe to be what Christ in his Word says it is.
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THE CASE FOR

1 New York, 1923, p. 2. (Eerdmaans, Grand Rapids).

Barths disciples no longer appealed to mans strength. They preached mans

143 Machen, Christianity and Liberalism, p. 105.

146 Hordern, The Case for a New Reformation Theology, p. 114.

148 An Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant 1913, p. 5.

55 DeWolf, The Religious Revolt Against Reason, p. 124.

96 DeWolf, The Religious Revolt Against Reason, p. 209.

105 Ibid., p. 178.

118 Ibid., p. 101.

130 Ibid., p. 87.

138 Ibid., p. 243.

148 Ibid., pp. 196198.

163 Ibid., p. 39f.

167 Ibid., p. 54.

105 The Case for Theology in Liberal Perspective, p. 52.

107 Apologetics, p. 73.

120 Ibid., p. 78.

126 Philosophy, p. 147.

154 Apologetics, p. 279.

157 Commitment, p. 37.

The existence of God as the administrator of justice164 is a deduction from the

162 Ibid., p. 73.

174 Apologetics, p. 195.

180 Ibid., p. 306.

185 Kingdom of Love, p. 6.

3 Speculation and Revelation in Modern Philosophy, p. 221.

8 Cf. Republic, Jewett, Vol. 2, p. 361.

27 The Case for a New Reformation Theology, p. 19.

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